Passages
by ardy1
Summary: Sequel to Prison Conversations. Sokka attempts to rejoin Aang, et al, after escaping from a Fire Nation prison. This is complicated, or maybe assisted, by his being accompanied by Prince Zuko. Rated for language and adult themes.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: "Passages" is a sequel to my earlier story "Prison Conversations", in which Zuko and Sokka found themselves in adjacent cells of a Fire Nation prison faced with impending death sentences. Despite themselves, they find themselves talking together and eventually working together to escape.

It was an interesting writing exercise for me because I forced myself to limit all dialogue to that between the two of them. I also limited all action, except in the chapter before the epilogue, to scenes involving them. I think I envisioned it all almost as a stage production.

Frankly, I am very fond of that story. It really made me stretch my imagination and my prose. If you want to really understand what is happening in this story, you should probably read "Prison Conversations" (which has the added benefit of being able to almost fit into canon as of this writing, June 2006).

In this story, I will be following not only the activities (and conversations) of Zuko and Sokka post-escape, but also the other main characters of the story, or at least, the other good guys. As a result, this goes way AU. Of course, my vision of the characters themselves is somewhat AU. These are the Avatar characters as I see them. I make no apologies. I'm firmly aware that the only folks who read beyond this point are either a) already secret admirers of my vision from "Prison Conversations", b) astonishingly open-minded, or possibly c) desperately seeking an Avatar fix and prepared to read anything they see in the fandom. Any of the above is fine by me.

Disclaimer: You know the drill – don't own it, won't claim it, shall be exempt from legal action thereby.

**Passages: Chapter 1**

"What," Zuko gazed askance at the construction before him, "the _hell_ is that?"

"I call it 'transportation'," said Sokka, as he packed yet another parcel in the bow. He was actually inordinately – and a bit guiltily – proud of having being given such a sweet little boat of his own. Its previous owners died upon the sands of the attempt to rescue him. He lived, they did not. The last thing he needed was a fire-bender's caustic benediction on his chosen path.

The banished prince of fire, so recently weakened by a Water Tribe spear to his shoulder, after a full month of deprivation in a prison at his own father's behest, saw much to question in the caravel presented before him.

"You're not seriously going anywhere on the open sea in that," he questioned Sokka's sanity.

"Look, the bigger a boat is, the harder it is to operate single-handed. So, yeah, it's small. And no, I wouldn't want to be out in bad conditions in it either. But it beats walking. And where I'm going, it will be a lot faster to go by water," Sokka finished stowing his borrowed gear. "What's it to you?"

Zuko had lived at sea for nearly three years. He was no stranger to the perils of water travel. But at least he had faced them with a ship and crew of sufficient size and experience to give him some confidence in his own survival. He had commanded his crew, but he was no sailor himself. Oh, he was perfectly competent in a kayak or canoe, and he knew enough to watch out for a swinging boom or flying lines on board a sailing vessel. But the craft Sokka was apparently contemplating was small indeed, with very little in the way of decking, a tiny cockpit in the stern area, and no cabin space at all. And navigating by the wind! He had only too recently experienced the vagaries of trusting to the wind.

But Sokka was Water Tribe. Even if he weren't a water-bender, presumably he was still pretty much at home on the sea, especially in the primitive craft devised by his own people.

"Do you know where you are going?" Zuko asked, instead of answering Sokka's question.

Sokka looked at him. Zuko knew his aim was to rejoin his sister and the avatar after escaping from the same Fire Nation prison that had incarcerated Zuko. Their time as fellow prisoners had breached many barriers between them, but Sokka was still Water Tribe, and Zuko was unquestionably still the Fire Nation's prince, no matter how banished or disgraced. It was one thing to trust Zuko not to actively seek out Aang. It was another altogether to point out the way.

Zuko raised an eyebrow. He now wore Water Tribe colors, the blue a stark contrast against his pale skin and golden eyes, but the Earth Kingdom clothes he had worn in prison were torn and soiled beyond repair. Sokka, too, and been given a change of clothing, sorely needed given a recent growth spurt and his own travails in prison, none the least the loss of several inches from his tunic to bind up Zuko's wounds.

"I know where they were as of five days ago, if that's what you mean," Sokka answered evenly. Zuko had helped him escape from the prison, had helped him free countless others at the same time. Sokka disliked sentimentality, but he respected debts of honor. He wasn't entirely sure where he stood with respect to such debts with Zuko.

The thwarted hunter in the Fire Nation boy snorted, "With that damned flying bison, they could be anywhere by now."

Sokka smiled, "Maybe"

"You're not telling me everything."

"Did you really expect I would?"

"No."

"So. Ask a stupid question…" He trailed off deliberately.

There was nothing astonishing in Sokka's pleasure at goading Zuko. Zuko's apparent patience with Sokka, on the other hand, would have prompted outright denial of his identity on the part of his childhood tutors.

They both looked up as a tall figure joined them. Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe did not understand his son's strange relationship with a fire-bender. But he had left Sokka at the South Pole as little more than a child. He was, in fact, something of a student of history, so he could perceive and accept that the spirits often made strange choices in their tools to move the fate of the world forward.

He had been told that his children were the chosen companions of the avatar, and that was astonishing enough in itself. He no longer felt competent to instruct the young man he had met again this day as his son in an unneeded rescue attempt.

The fact that Sokka had _not_ needed him spoke for itself. That instead, he had relied upon the young fire-bender who accompanied him, spoke volumes about the changing world in which they lived.

All he could hope was that the change was, in fact, for the good.

"We leave with the tide," Hakoda said to Sokka. "Are you sure you won't sail with us?"

"Sorry, Dad," Sokka spoke with real regret, "You know my way lies elsewhere. I wish– you _know_ I wish I could go with you."

"No, you're right," Hakoda smiled. "I'm sure your sister is in good hands with the Avatar. But I would feel better if you were with her."

Zuko snorted. And coughed to hide his indiscretion.

Sokka laughed. "Right, Dad. Cause the most powerful person in the world and two master benders really need a fall guy for when they screw up."

Hakoda smiled as well, but his eyes were serious. "Because I trust _you_ to look after your sister - and the Avatar!"

He looked at the fire-bender, who had not risen at his approach. The lack of respect for an elder could be forgiven considering his injuries, but Hakoda could tell that this was a boy who did not raise himself for anyone. Again he questioned Sokka's apparent trust in the young man. Again he chose to respect his son's judgment. He nodded at Zuko.

"There is nothing else we can do for you. May the moon and ocean heal you with speed, and may they bless your journeys. If we meet again, may it not be on the field of conflict." He nodded again and turned to Sokka. He held his son close for another brief moment, and then turned back to his fleet.

The war held nothing more for them than one incursion after another. They had been surprisingly successful so far. The Fire Nation was arrogant and discounted the fervor and cunning of the Water Tribes, especially the remnants of the Southern Tribe. With that, and great luck, there was still a chance for most of them to return home.

And luck, oddly enough, still seemed to reside in children, particularly a young boy with an affiliation to no one, and to all.

-------

A/N: Were I Sokka's parent I would have screamed blue murder at his leaving the relative safety of the home village – and dragging his sister along – on such a hair-brained quest, not to mention abandoning his tribal responsibilities! Then again, I credit Hakoda with a larger vision than my own. Or perhaps a better understanding of the futility of commanding adolescents.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Your father is the leader of your people?" Zuko said over the evening fire. Sokka had elected to wait for the morning tide. "Why is a peasant the leader? Or am I wrong? Aren't you a peasant?"

"My father only leads by default. The Fire Nation – _your_ people – killed off all the others, those we would have looked to otherwise. Dad was the story-teller, the historian. You do what you need to do. So now we choose our leaders by those who seem best fit. It changes from time to time. We're _all _peasants."

Sokka laughed. "Forget it, Zuko, I can see where your mind is going. There's nothing to say I'll be leading the southern Water Tribe at the end of this. Nothing at all."

"It's stupid to waste talent. For whatever reason, your father is a proven leader. Why shouldn't you be?"

"And _your_ father is a proven tyrant. Does that mean you will be also?"

"Don't you dare speak against my father!" Zuko's anger flared, as did the fire at his fingertips.

Sokka's voice took on an edge Zuko hadn't heard in a long time, "Zuko, you're a stupid, narrow-minded git! If I could, I'd lay your father out on the butcher's slab so fast it would make your head spin. When are you going to figure it out? The Firelord's a monster and the sooner Aang takes him out the better off the world will be!"

He hesitated. He knew he was treading dangerous ground, "I admit, I worship my dad, and I want to be just like him. I guess every kid wants to be like his father. But you – how _can_ you?" Sokka stepped well back and drew the machete, not trusting to Zuko's control without the shackles that had held him at bay in the prison.

Which was wise. In his fury, Zuko sent a wild fireball Sokka's way. He easily dodged it and watched as it spun harmlessly into the surf. Zuko's arm ached. He had, without thinking, used his injured arm to fling the fireball. It burned in response, and Sokka saw the bandage discolor as the wound bled anew.

Sokka wished again that Katara were here to just deal with the wound and get it over with. He almost forgot to be thankful that Zuko lacked the proper strength to arm a fireball beyond his defensive capablilities.

"You need a fuckin' care-taker!" Sokka moaned, breaking out the kit of bandages the Water Tribe had left behind.

"What I need…" and Zuko trailed off, his fury spent. What the hell, maybe Sokka was right. Without his uncle all Zuko seemed to do was make mistakes. He had thought that without the old fool he would be better off. He had left Iroh behind to beg for his tea and bread. He had forgotten that his uncle was the Dragon of the West. He wasn't any more the fool than Sokka. In fact, he was even less so. And Zuko's pride had forced him to walk away from the greatest asset he had ever had. From the only one who had ever truly loved him.

Damn Sokka. Again.

---------

And with the early morning tide they were faced with the question they had been avoiding.

"I don't need your help."

"Right. You've got that fire-thingy to shake things up." Sokka paused. "It's always scared the shit out of me. Seriously."

"I hate your sorry ass."

"Up yours," This good-by was harder than expected.

"Look, Dad was right. I hope we don't have to meet again, you know…"

"More fool he for leaving a fire-bender to his own devices."

"Yeah. Pretty dumb, in hind-sight." Sokka considered. "So, are you gonna tell me where you're headed?"

"Are you?"

There was a moment of silence as they looked at each other.

"I suppose," Sokka drawled, "You've heard the old line, 'keep your friends close…'"

"'…and your enemies closer,'" Zuko finished. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting I'd rather know where you are and what you are up to than letting you wander wherever."

"Hmm. And I think you may well have a better shot of taking me where I need to be than I do on my own. I warn you, I've not given up on taking the Avatar to my father."

"I think you will, give up, I mean. For whatever reason."

"You're a fool, Sokka. I won't warn you again."

"Uh-huh. Wanna know how often I've heard that?" Sokka picked up the kit the Water Tribe warriors had provided the Fire Nation fugitive, tossing it in the caravel's cockpit.

"You're being premature…"

"The tide waits for no man. Jump now or get really wet."

Zuko jumped.

--------

The differences between a large ship under steam and a small barque propelled by the wind should have come as no surprise to the prince. Actually, what came as a surprise what was Sokka expected of him.

"I thought you said you could manage this single-handedly" Zuko yelled, already unhappy at the effect the swells had on his stomach.

"I can," Sokka explained. "But it will be safer and easier if you can at least take the helm for a little while."

"Fine. What do I do when I take the helm, anyway?"

Sokka grabbed Zukko's hand, placed it on the tiller and then grasped it a little below Zuko's grip.

"Okay. Now hold the tiller. Feel the pull. That's a combination of the current and the progress we are making with the wind. Look at the sail, see the tell-tales - those little strings here and there along the sails – they tell you how the wind is blowing. You want to keep as much wind as you can in the sail, and that's a function of how much curve you have in the sail – how much the mainsheet is pulled in – and the direction you're steering, or the boat's point. Now, pick some place there on the shore as your heading, cause the sheet's already adjusted for the tack we want for now – don't worry about that now, I'll explain it later. Just try to keep on that heading."

"Okay, I get it. This isn't so hard."

"Good, glad you think so. It's gonna get a bit harder soon, so pay attention to what you're doing."

Why? What does it matter?"

"Cuz I'm going up to set the head sail."

"What the fuck! Why do we need a - a head sail?"

But Sokka was gone. And Zuko had the tiller.

He felt the current pulling at him as he watched Sokka edge forward with a large bag at his side. He looked up and saw the little strings along different points of the sail, and shifted his stance on the tiller to match the trail of the little strings along the line Sokka had set the boat to the coast before turning over control to Zuko.

He felt the wind. He felt the current. And he wondered at a simple human's ability to sense these elements and use them to shift the boat to his will.

------

At first it was easy. And there was an amazing exhilaration as he knew he controlled the craft's direction and speed. He watched Sokka raise the other sail out of the corner of his eye, aware that a single misstep would send the boy over the deck's edge, and that they were heading at a speed it would be hard to retract without engines.

And then Zuko realized that these same elements controlled his will to a degree he hadn't experienced before. He had to work with them to keep the boat on course.

Meanwhile, Sokka hoisted the additional sail up the single mast, attaching its lower corner (its 'clew', or did he call it the 'foot'?), and running lines (Sokka had called them sheets) through confining rings on each side of the boat and winching one 'sheet' tight on the windward side The little boat seemed to leap ahead in speed.

Sokka took control of the tiller from Zuko. Some minutes passed, in which Zuko took note of the shift in heading against the coastline that Sokka took with the addition of the jib. Not only were they going faster, but the additional sail seemed to have given them more flexibility in direction.

"Okay, when I yell, 'ready about', I want you to loosen that sheet from that side and winch it in on the other side," Sokka yelled.

"What?"

"We're gonna change tack. The boom's gonna swing over – so duck! And the head-sail's gonna need to shift as well, or we might jibe. Just do it!"

The look that Zuko gave Sokka screamed uncertainty, but Sokka had lived through his share of accidental jibes and even a few capsizes. Zuko was enough of a soldier that the change of tack went relatively smoothly – the boom shifted sides without incident and the head-sail's trim was adjusted without untoward incident, if a little slowly.

Sokka breathed more easily. Zuko's blood pressure went down a hundred points.

--------

"Do we need all this sail?" Zuko asked. It seemed a reasonable question. The boat was small – probably less than sixteen feet in length – and the single mast well in excess of that length, so with two sails Zuko's math was challenged to calculate a balance of terms of force and resistance.

"Well. You understand our speed is a function of the length of our water line and our force of propulsion against the water's resistance?"

Zuko looked at Sokka in sheer perplexity. Sokka swallowed. This was obviously not the time. He had thought to simplify his explanation without consideration of wind resistance on the hull. Well, that was okay. He didn't fully understand it anyway, and it looked like Zuko wasn't quite prepared to consider the physics of water currents either.

If you weren't a bender and understood it inherently it could be - well, complicated - even for those of the Water Tribes. On the other hand, while sailing could be explained as a matter of physics, it was learned as a matter of heart and feel anyway. And so it had been passed down, generation to generation.

Presumably it could also be passed without benefit of affiliation with the Water Tribes. Sokka remembered the awesome power of the Fire Nation Navy. They had to have started without engine-powered boats. The builders of that Navy had to have understood the dynamics of water travel. Had it all started with one Water Tribesman teaching someone from the Fire Nation, all those years ago? Was Sokka somehow compounding a historical disservice?


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I did promise to include Aang et al in this story, so now it is time. No, they won't really get equal time, but I admit it always drives me crazy when someone takes an ensemble cast and ignores most of them completely (like I did in the story that this one follows). To do this, of course, I had to come up with a reasonable course of action for them rather than immediately coming to Sokka's rescue. I hope this will suffice._

Disclaimer: You know the drill – don't own it, won't claim it, shall be exempt from legal action thereby.

**Chapter 3**

"I don't like it. I never have. And I _still_ think we should have gone after him ourselves," Katara formed an eerie reflection of her brother as she paced along one side of the room.

Aang didn't exactly recognize it, but the hairs crawled on the back of his neck anyway. What few hairs there were.

"He'd have killed us if we did, and you know it," He responded.

"At least he'd have been here to try!" She cried, echoing his heart. "What if the Earth Kingdom failed? I mean, Sokka doesn't mean anything to them! How do we know they actually even sent out a rescue party anyway?"

Aang bowed deeply to the young woman across the room. He knew she was aware of his movements, even if she couldn't see him. And, of course, she heard Katara's outburst. Well, it certainly wasn't the first. "Katara, they promised they would send out the best. They know where he is – the Fire Nation made sure _everyone _knows where he is and when they plan to execute him! Because they want me to come get him. And, I'm quoting _you_ here, remember, that's why _I_ can't and _someone else_ has to. Shouldn't we assume they can do as well as we could?"

Katara scowled. "What do you think? Really?"

Aang stood up straight, and his young earth-bending master walked away, leaving him with his best friend. Toph was obviously fed up with Katara and had elected not to participate in this discussion. "Honestly? I think this whole worry about my friends being my weakness is stupid. I can _do_ this now, right? Okay, maybe I still need to learn fire-bending. But we both know I haven't needed fire-bending to beat the Fire Nation one-on-one before. And now that I know water-bending and earth-bending…"

"Exactly. It was a fine pact at the beginning. But why put you through all that stress of worrying what others are doing when you could face any _single_ enemy fairly easily…"

"Uh, Katara. Again, _you_ were the one who insisted we trust to the Earth Kingdom to rescue Sokka…"

"I know! I know! He made me promise! It was stupid, and I should have seen it from the beginning! I could have done it on my own-!"

"And _that's_ exactly what he predicted – and wanted to avoid. Katara, Sokka is not stupid!"

"Except when it comes to us! Then he's dumb, dumb, dumb. You know what? He's dumb about lots of things! He needs us! We need him! Why are we expecting others to bring him back to us?" The note of hysteria was a common element in Katara's speech these days, and Aang had taken note of it.

If… no, when! – Sokka returned he thought they should all talk about this much further. He had thought, selfishly, most about the possible impact of Katara's loss to him. He hadn't really thought about Sokka's loss and its impact. To all of them. Even after Sokka had brought the subject up. And that was a big mistake.

Well. It was enough to make him swear. For example, if the Earth Kingdom effort at rescuing Sokka from execution failed he had no doubt he would retreat to the Avatar State and throw some kind of fit. Like that would do anyone any good at all. Least of all, Sokka.

Katara was right. They should have gone after him themselves, no matter what they had promised.

No matter how pissed Sokka would have been afterwards.

Aang cringed at the thought of how pissed Sokka would have been. And kicked himself mentally for worrying about Sokka's reaction in the first place.

* * *

Zuko was sea-sick.

He had forgotten the number of times he had released the winch on one sheet only to tighten it on the other side. He had no concept of the number of times he had ducked the swing of the main-sail boom from one side of the boat to the other as they changed tack. He had _totally_ lost the exhilaration that his brief stand at the tiller had given him. His shoulder ached. He was sunburned. And he was as tired as he had ever been in his life.

Their craft was so tiny, every movement of one or the other shifted the balance, potentially shifting a tide of water over one side of the bow or the other. There was no escape. Their skin and clothing was wet with spray, and salt was a permanent taste on their lips. Since Zuko was generally further forward, he was also the first to be hit when a wave broke over one side or the other, and he had no doubt that he was the wetter. And also inevitably, he was the one bailing water out of the cockpit when this happened.

Sailing sucked.

There was a damned good reason the Fire Nation had built fucking great ships with means of propulsion that didn't rely on the wind. _Big _ships, with cabins that you could sleep in and almost forget the surge of water and wind. Almost.

And he had never seen that stupid Water Tribesman look more relaxed. While his own stomach roiled and protested, Sokka sat at the helm with a look of glee on his face. He would absently pull a sheet tighter, adjust the winching on the main-sail, his eye constantly on one sail or the other, or on the sea itself, watching for changes in its color or wave-front.

The gangly, occasionally awkward Sokka disappeared ship-board. One hand sure on the tiller, the other reaching easily for the winches controlling the head-sail sheets, he would also watch the main-sail, adjusting its trim infinitesimally from time to time. He would nonchalantly order Zuko to mind the tiller while he climbed on deck to change some aspect of shroud or rigging beyond Zuko's understanding. He slipped into that double-speak Zuko had noted in prison, where he spoke quite coherently on whatever subject Zuko brought up, but his mind was clearly involved with something else. Zuko now understood it was the true sailor's stance. And he moved almost like an air-bender, skipping about their tiny craft as sure-footed and lightly as a labrador-porpoise. It was enough to make Zuko gag.

Still, Zuko could read a map as well as anyone. He had learned to read _coastal charts_ as well, and it wasn't long before he had determined their position with a fair degree of accuracy. So he kept an eye out for charted as well as uncharted obstacles, be they Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, or below water. But he didn't know where they were going.

As the day ended Sokka drew them into a wide cove, the shallow draft of the boat allowing him to send it scudding across the quiet surface at a breakneck pace, pulling up the center board just in time to send the hull up on the sand so they could disembark without stepping in the water. Zuko was, admittedly, relieved, even as he suspected Sokka of showing off.

* * *

So, you think your uncle is still free?" Sokka asked absently, eyeing the wild roots they had wrapped in seaweed and nestled among the glowing coals to roast, choosing to preserve their long-term food supplies. At Zuko's insistence.

"Uncle comes across as pretty simple, but the reality is he's _very_ careful about who he trusts. And he wouldn't be cornered easily," Zuko said quietly. "Yeah. He's still free. Somewhere."

"And you have no idea where to look for him," Sokka already knew the answer. He had his own suspicions, which he wasn't ready to share.

"I think he'll keep moving. Not stay any one place too long. He'll keep trying to gain information about what's going on, so he won't stray too far from the front lines," Zuko mused. He really wished he had questioned his uncle more about his time in the Earth Kingdom. So many years wandering there he _must_ have developed some ties, some connections Zuko and the rest of the Fire Nation would not know about.

"Right. And your plan?"

"I told you. I could do worse than find the Avatar," Zuko met Sokka's gaze evenly.

"Yeah. And you know why I'm _not_ worried about that? You _can't_ beat him, Zuko. You're without friends or resources. I'm not convinced you really even still believe it's the right thing to do. And Aang just gets stronger every day. He's a master air-bender, and months ago he made most water-benders look like jokes. Last_ I_ saw him he had earth-bending down pretty well," And here he offered the kicker. "Dad said he'd heard the Avatar had found a _fire_-bending master to teach him. Zuko. Your people _aren't_ united under your father. You should know that."

"You lie."

Sokka shrugged. "I met people from the Fire Nation _before_ who didn't support the Fire Lord. I've even met _fire-benders_ who had turned against him. Are you so sure about your _uncle_ even?"

And that was as far as he would go this night. Spirite knew it was far enough. The look Zuko gave him burned as if real flame shot from his eyes. But Sokka had been burned before by his sister's gaze. He knew pain when he saw it. And uncertainty.

Sokka could be making the biggest mistake in his life in this venture with the prince of the Fire Nation. He was betting _so_ much, so much more than his own life, on his own judgement. It frightened him. But Sokka had lived with fear all his life. He had learned to listen to his fear, and learned to look beyond it. So far, Zuko hadn't disappointed him.

But oh! how he wished he weren't making this judgment alone!


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I just checked my stats and "Prison Conversations" has had over 200 readers make it through the whole thing. That pleases me ridiculously (who'd read through 20 chapters of something if they didn't like it?). I'm also quite pleased at the number of reviews I have received so far on the sequel here. Wow. Y'all are so loyal I don't dare give up on this.

Disclaimer: You know the drill – don't own it, won't claim it, shall be exempt from legal action thereby.

**Chapter 4**

"All this talking is stupid. I don't really think it's necessary, but if you're gonna go nuts about it why not just go get him?" Toph's quiet voice cut through their tension with its customary abruptness.

"Well, I can think of two reasons, actually," said Katara. She felt a bit awkward because she still wasn't wholly comfortable with the younger girl's presence.

"Like what?" asked Aang. He adored both girls, and hated it when they were at odds. It was different than when Katara squabbled with Sokka – that was always very much in the open and blew over quickly. They may snipe at one another but there was never any question as to the real underlying affection between them.

Katara and Toph didn't squabble, at least, not very often. They just…didn't always seem to agree. Aang put it down to two very strong personalities still finding their fit together. It never occurred to him that there might be some edge of competitiveness between the two young bending masters, or that his attention might sharpen that edge.

"Well, if the rescue effort was successful and we show up afterwards we could just get ourselves in trouble," Katara had honed her wit on the stone of her brother's intellect for years, and had no difficulty playing devil's advocate. "If, as Toph says, our rescue isn't necessary we could just confuse things in his getting back to us."

"And it would delay Aang's fire-bending lessons," Toph finished. "There's your third reason." The implication in her voice was clear. It was about time Katara recognized the logic of staying where they were.

Aang interjected, as much for the sake of peace as anything, "But that assumes he doesn't need our help. That the Earth Kingdom's effort will be successful."

Toph turned her blind gaze to Aang. He found nothing disconcerting in it, since her face was an open book to him.

"We've held out a hundred years against the Fire Nation. I think that deserves some faith in what we can accomplish." Her voice was gentle. She wanted to reassure.

Suddenly she grinned, "What's up with you two? Sokka's not half the fool he appears. He's probably already slipped through their fingers and is on his way here now. This _is_ Sokka we're talking about!"

Katara couldn't help a grin in response. "Right. Slipped right out of one hole and splat into another. This is _Sokka _we're talking about…"

* * *

"So. If you could do it over again, would you do it differently?" Sokka knew he was attacking without provocation. But hell, he had been generous. This was a question that had been on his mind for a while. That he waited until Zuko could fry him just for asking was grace indeed, in his own mind. Whether or not Zuko perceived it as such was another question.

But Zuko ached in every bone and muscle. More so in those recently taxed, his shoulder and arm. Sokka almost felt guilty when Zuko's initial response spun harmlessly into the surf. Again. He'd have felt _more_ guilty if Zuko had chosen to respond with words rather than a fireball. But hey, anyway. What could you expect from teenagers?

"_What_? _Do_ what? What a _stupid_ way to ask a question." He was annoyed with himself for bothering to respond at all. But there. Maybe he had misunderstood Sokka's question.

"Okay, fine. Let's just start with that war-room. Do you regret what you said?"

Or maybe he had not.

"The general's strategy was _sound_."

"I didn't ask that. If _winning_ is the most important thing, and you don't care about the _cost_, then _whatever_ you do to win is sound. But I don't give a fuck if the strategy was _sound _or not." He slowed his voice to enunciate each word so that it got its own emphasis, as if his statement was punctuated by periods after every word. " Do you regret objecting that it was the right thing to do?" Sokka didn't care about military tactics at this stage.

"You're an ignorant peasant. You can't even grasp what goes into such a decision." Zuko tried the same trick. He'd argued enough with Sokka to know that whoever got the other one to actually answer would be the winner.

"We already _know_ I'm an ignorant peasant. Don't care! What _I_ think don't matter! Have _you_ changed your mind about sending in raw troops to face a massacre? Or did I misunderstand your objection in the first place?"

Silence. Firm, frigid silence.

"Okay. Just tell me if I've _missed_ something somewhere then," They _both_ knew when silence was as good as an answer. Sokka was almost smirking already, but he kept his voice even, calm and thoughtful. "If you were _wrong_, and your father was somehow right to scar you and banish you for protesting, does this mean your father is some kind of god who is infallible? Or, if you were _right_, and it _was_ wrong to send in those troops, but your father was _also_ right, then your justice system must be somehow fucked up to punish you for being right. _Isn't_ it? Is it even _possible_ for you both to be right? So, if you _were_ right, and your father was _wrong_ – I admit _this_ is my favorite take on the issue – then what kind of _fool_ does that make you for wasting the last three years of your life doing what your father demanded?"

Sokka paused for deliberate effect. Sometimes he wished he could watch himself.

"You talk too much."

Sokka waved the comment aside, as if he hadn't heard. "I don't know… _Any_ way I look at it, I think you're screwed. It looks to me like no one is _allowed _to be right but your father. And by now even you _must_ admit he looks pretty damned wrong about most things…"

Zuko's eyes were fixed on the fire, "You _do_ know how easy it would be for me to kill you, don't you?"

"Actually, no. I don't know." Behind these words were _years _of practice at goading another human being to just the verge. Sokka didn't bait out of cruelty. Not really. He really wanted someone to _share_ his thinking, and Sokka had found that Zuko was not unlike Katara when it came to motivating him to _think_! Both were too introspective by half, and needed provoking. He hoped he had gauged how far he could safely provoke Zuko.

"I mean, yes, _of course_ you could blast me with fire. I know you're injured and not at your best, but I've _seen_ you work. Still. I don't think it would be _easy_ for you."

And Sokka decided to put it on the line. No more hiding behind excuses. All this gambling was beginning to tell on him. It made no sense at all. And yet. Every bet he'd placed on the Fire Prince he had _thought_ he'd had the inside edge. And usually, when he _meant_ to win, he did. Of course, he had definitely lost before. And without meaning to! He tossed luck aside in favor clearing the air.

"You are _so_ full of shit your eyes should be brown. You _know_ what I think about the Fire Nation's goals. You _know_ I want your father dead and I can't even _think_ of the right hell to consign your sister to!" Sokka paused to breathe deeply. "And if you don't believe I'd give my life for Aang then I should have left you in that hell-hole of a prison just for stupidity's sake." Slowly and deliberately, he made his way back to his seat, every muscle tense with the effort of appearing relaxed while remaining ready to dodge instantly.

Zuko's gaze never wavered from the fire. He wasn't yet ready for this conversation, but he didn't question Sokka for forcing the issue. It was time. Still, he could have wished Sokka had been willing to play the fool just a bit longer. He honestly didn't know how he would emerge from this confrontation.

The fire flared higher, and Sokka knew Zuko heard him. He sighed.

"Okay, fine, forget all that. Just answer the original question. Do you regret speaking up?"

This time Zuko's golden eyes met the Water Tribe boy's without flinching. "I regret nothing. Except… maybe not killing you when I first had the chance."

Sokka's lip curled, as a part of his soul relaxed. "Small change, Zuko. You _lost_ your chance, 'cause I think sorting out who owes whom after this is more trouble than it's worth for either of us."

"Sez you," Zuko grunted. But a weight had lifted from his own soul, which had nothing to do with his relationship with Sokka. He had admitted, and not just to himself, that _despite_ its costs he still believed he had made one right choice three years ago.

And that, for now, was enough for both of them.

* * *

A/N: Okay, I hate Sokka the fool. So in my stories I have tried to give him motivation for playing the fool even if he is possibly smarter than nearly everyone else. Hey, even in canon he's the one usually more aware of the dangers and/or absurdities of any given situation than anyone else. He's a bit of a geek. And, yes, he's lazy. (I've only just realized that I've modeled my vision of Sokka on a guy I knew in college: a clown, philosopher, and musician, quite brilliant and someone I adored. Pity there was no chemistry between us…) Anyway, it is his task, his destiny, to take over Iroh's role in bringing Zuko into realization of the man he can and should be. They are mirrors held up to each other, their differences and similarities, the simple fact that they are, at least in age, true peers, all bind together to, I hope, teach them both something about manhood. If I can pull this off to my own satisfaction, I will be very good indeed!

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Sometimes when I'm feeling discouraged I'll go back and re-read something I've written. Sometimes that makes me feel better, and sometimes I just end up feeling worse. Anyway, I recently re-read my "Sabotage" fic, and enjoyed myself so much I'm thinking about taking up a sequel to that particular story. It weighed in less on character and more on setting, plot, and history. The problem with it is that it is seriously, seriously alternate universe, and would be very difficult to sustain. Not to mention create another plot for.

Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender is copywritten elsewhere and I would never consider breaching someone's copywrite. Therefore, anything that follows must be considered exempt from all forms of litigation, lien, or demand. 

* * *

Chapter 5

Zuko had the morning fire going before he nudged Sokka with his foot to wake him. He nudged him again, _hard_. Sokka's ability to sleep was both amazing and annoying to the fire-bender. It had annoyed him in prison and it annoyed him now. He could only vaguely remember when sleep had come to him easily, and even those memories had painful associations.

Once Sokka had groggily seated himself before the fire, he eyed the bread Zuko had left to toast on some embers. He reached for his food bag, and pulled out an otherwise colorless and shapeless lump heavily wrapped in paper.

Zuko tossed him a slice of warmed bread and watched as Sokka rubbed the unwrapped lump over one side. Sokka noticed his gaze.

"Turtle-seal blubber. It adds great flavor and the energy will stay with you all day. Want some?"

Zuko curled his lip in disdain until the aroma of warmed fat on the toasted bread reached his nostrils. Sokka passed it over to the prince, grinning as he first gingerly took a bite, and then wolfed the whole slice down. He handed his own bread to Sokka with alacrity and put more on to toast.

Having filled their waterskins from the steam emptying into the cove, they packed up camp to return to sea. Zuko was still favoring his shoulder, but he seemed in better spirits today.

They groused back and forth as they stowed their gear back aboard and started dragging the small boat out into the surf. Sokka had his eyes on the incoming swells, and if he hadn't heard Zuko swear he might have missed the first arrow as it passed Zuko's near shoulder, burying itself in the fore gunwale. As it was, the second arrow lodged in the stern too close to his own hand to be missed.

Sokka's instinct was to keep dragging and pushing, to throw themselves into the sea and run for it. But Zuko lacked that particular instinct. He had already whirled to face this latest threat, his weapons forgotten in the cockpit.

So Sokka drew the machete he had taken from the prison armory and positioned himself such that the stern of the boat gave him some cover while he turned to assess the situation.

His heart sank like a stone.

* * *

"You know, it's a _lot_ easier learning bending from a _friend_ than some old guy. I don't care _how_ good he is," Aang grumbled as he settled onto the low bench on the veranda. "First Jeong-Jeong, then Pakku, now _this_ guy. _Everybody_ says I'm too impatient!"

"You _are_ impatient, Aang," Toph answered. She threw a ripe pear his direction. "But you have a right to be. Why go over hours and hours of exercises? You need to learn the _heart _of bending so you can go straight to kicking butt." She conveniently ignored her own strictures on his earth-bending training.

"Exactly," he munched the pear. Learning earth-bending from Toph had been exciting and fun, if initially downright paralyzing and yes, occasionally a bit bruising. The girl had opened his mind to a whole new world of perceptions, in direct opposition to everything he had learned in air-bending.

It had been exhilarating in a way he hadn't experienced with water-bending, which had been more of an extension of his existing skills. Of course, for an air-bender, earth-bending _was_ harder to learn than water-bending, so he _had_ to put more effort into it. And he felt guilty, because he knew Katara had worked much harder than he to become a master water-bender. But while her repertoire of moves may still exceed his, he knew he could bring more force to it, and she could no longer beat him sparring, in creativity or otherwise. Being the Avatar had some advantages, including an innate ability to find ways of supplementing one discipline's moves with that from another.

Katara joined them as Toph answered Aang. She had been talking to their hosts about getting word on the attempt to free Sokka from prison.

"Maybe _fire-bending_ is different. Everyone seems to think so. I can't image water, air or earth getting away from the bender the way fire can," Katara hated being the one to bring Aang back to earth. She hated playing the role of mother hen, _especially_ in front of Toph.

And she couldn't dismiss Toph the way she would Sokka, so she had to be more diplomatic in her objections to Aang's impulsiveness.

Katara admired Toph. Truly she did; how could she not? Her mastery of her element was _phenomenal_, even more so than her own since Toph was virtually entirely self-taught, and Toph had the additional factor of her blindness to overcome. The girl was _younger_ than her. Her parents had smothered her with their protectiveness, and the lengths to which they would go to regain their "helpless" child were testament enough as to the hurdles she had overcome. So why couldn't she just relax around her?

Toph had rolled her sightless eyes, snorting in derision, "Hello? Tsunami, anyone? Avalanche for breakfast, or would you prefer a cyclone?"

Katara blushed. She injected grit in her voice, "I doubt most _beginners _in any discipline could manage to produce _any_ of those, and once you've gained _that_ kind of power you also should have enough mastery to avoid a disaster. But fire _is _different – even a small fire can cause a lot of harm. And as the Avatar Aang has more power than he necessarily knows how to control. I think you know what I'm talking about."

Toph should know. Katara had been pressed into fusing her broken arm bones back together during one of Aang's early earth-bending lessons. Katara would not have brought it up – she could see anguish in Aang's eyes and hated herself - but for all of her mastery Toph still lacked a mature perspective.

Okay. She _wanted_ to take the other girl down a notch. So sue her.

"So maybe I should pay attention to my fire-bending master," Aang interjected.

And this was yet another reason why Aang missed Sokka. Sokka's ability to draw Katara's fire and defuse it, he _now_ saw as a quality only appreciated in its absence. And Sokka could make Toph laugh even when she was annoyed.

Oh yes, it was more than time Sokka returned to them.

* * *

There were six of them dropping from the trees. Sokka recognized the giant easily, and the tall, lean youth with the bow had obviously missed them deliberately. But it was the swaggering gait of their leader that made him wonder why fate seemed hell-bent in making life difficult for him in particular.

And _just_ when things seemed to be looking up.

"Forget it, Zuko," he muttered as he watched his companion drop into an offensive posture. "The bowman's a master and unless you can take him out instantly we're dead. Oh, and the guy with the funny hooked swords? _He_'s the one you really need to watch out for."

They weren't far enough out to get away cleanly. He wondered briefly if they should abandon the boat and make a run for the headland, but decided instantly that it offered even less chance of getting away than the sea. So, where was a damned flying bison when you needed it?

"Whaddaya want, Jet?" he yelled, straightening up and taking a step forward through the surf.

"Hey, Sokka. Where's that _witch_ of a sister of yours, and where's our young Avatar?" If Sokka had hoped Jet had forgotten everything about him, that hope evaporated with the venom in Jet's voice.

Jet continued, "I heard the Fire Nation was gonna fry your balls…" and then he got a good look at Zuko and his attention was distracted. "…and for once I was gonna cheer. So what are you doing with _that_ scum, Sokka? No amount of blue can hide Fire Nation."

"Really, Sokka, and you say _my_ country's fucked up? Shouldn't this guy be your ally?" Zuko seemed a bit amused at the rag-tag appearance of Jet's group, but he was prepared to be cautious given Sokka's words of warning. "What gives?"

"See, this is yet _another_ example of my problem with the Fire Nation. Here we leave this crazy terrorist nicely frozen to a tree for them to lock up, and instead _I_ get locked up. There's no justice…"

Sokka was calculating as he blathered. Jet was tough, and he was no match for him, but _Zuko_ might be. Or maybe _not_ given he was still recovering from a spear thrust through his shoulder a few short days ago. He thought he could get the bowman, Longshot, with the first pass of his boomerang, and maybe another with its return if he were lucky. Could he really incapacitate yet three more while Zuko fought Jet? With one being the giant, Pipsqueak? Surely not.

So what would happen if they didn't try? Well, Jet hadn't killed them yet.

Which meant he had _other_ plans. Sokka really didn't want to think about that. He took a deep breath.

"C'mon, Jet," Sokka continued, "If you know about my much-to-be-lamented execution plans then you should _also_ know that particular prison won't be executing _anyone_ for a while. They lost the whole prison population, didn't they? And yes, that would be thanks to my buddy over there and myself."

Stalling for time never hurt.

* * *

Zuko too was calculating. Sokka was babbling nonsense, which meant he was busy thinking. And _that_ could be trouble all on its own.

The key was the leader. As always. They were dealing with a pack of dogs who were powerless without someone to guide them. So if they could take out this… Jet person, then the others wouldn't matter. How difficult would that be? Obviously, Sokka didn't feel up to it, or he wouldn't be wasting time talking, would he? Well, how would Zuko know about that one way or the other?

The one called Jet eased forward. There was a lazy smile on his face, but it didn't reach his eyes, and there was nothing lazy about the cat-like grace with which he moved. Zuko moved free of the surf to one side of the boat. He was pleased to see Sokka moving in the opposite direction. Good. Split up their attention.

"I don't care if you and your buddy killed the Fire Lord himself. _I'm_ going to kill _you_, Sokka. But I promise you, it won't be quick, and it won't be easy. You think you're so smart. Well, you were right. They drove us out of the forest. We had to find new quarters, and I had to find some new men. You _owe_ me. You owe me big time." Jet leaped at Sokka with one of the wickedly curved blades raised.

"I always said you were one sick bastard," Sokka murmured as he dove to one side, pulling his boomerang as he fell and whipping it at Longshot. He rolled and pivoted, grabbing up a handful of wet sand and water and slinging it at Jet as he came to his feet.

But Jet wasn't where he expected.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: This chapter is a wee bit longer than normal. Do not take that as a sign of things to come. By the way, this story is very different from 'Prison Conversations', in form as intent. The guys are going to be traveling together for at least a few days, anyway. Zuko needs to find a destination, both physically and spiritually, and while Sokka is anxious to get back to the others, he has a project in Zuko's rehabilitation (or rather, that's how Sokka sees it), and he is reluctant to give up on it. So they'll be having some adventures together. As I've already said, I'm throwing in the others just cause it always drives me a bit crazy when a writer takes an ensemble cast and completely ignores most of them.

Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender is copywritten elsewhere and I would never consider breaching someone's copywrite. Therefore, anything that follows must be considered exempt from all forms of litigation, lien, or demand. 

* * *

Chapter 6

Sokka would have been annoyed if he hadn't at the same time been, well frankly, _relieved_. He had been sure he had judged Jet's trajectory correctly when he twisted away, and had even allowed a bit for the possibility of Jet being able to adjust his leap to make up for Sokka's dive.

What he _hadn't _considered was how the force of another body of roughly equal size would alter the direction of the first body when it was hit from a right angle at a velocity at least equal to the first body.

So, yes, Jet was somewhere, well, _totally_ different after Zuko plowed into him as Jet charged Sokka. And the fistful of sand and water Sokka had hoped to blind Jet with arced through the air without hitting anything at all.

Which, as already noted, _would_ have been annoying if Sokka hadn't thought Zuko was probably doing a better job of distracting Jet from his target – Sokka – than a bit of sand and water could do.

Ah, at least his boomerang had done its intended job. And yes, it was returning back to him. How he loved this weapon! Longshot's bow lay on the beach beside the prone form of the archer. Unfortunately, he hadn't managed to take out anyone else, but no one else had moved forward.

Well, of course not. They weren't prepared to move at all without Jet's direction. And Sokka felt stupid for not anticipating that. And annoyed after all, because he couldn't help but suspect that Zuko had done just that, which was the real reason he had charged him, rather than any thought about saving Sokka's butt. Arrogant shithead. Well, hadn't he been trained to be a military leader all along? Sokka shouldn't be surprised that such thinking came naturally to Zuko. Fine. A reflection to shelve for a more convenient moment to consider.

Unlike Jet's team, Sokka felt under no compulsion to wait for the outcome of the altercation between Jet and Zuko. He sent his boomerang sailing again and charged the nearest combatant, keeping a weather eye on the young giant.

* * *

Which was a pity, in some regards. He completely missed seeing the fight between Zuko and Jet, and it was _worth_ seeing. Once he had recovered from Zuko's initial rush, Jet's movements regained their feline grace. He broke away from Zuko's grip, rolled, and was back on his feet with incredible speed. A testament to his skill, both hooked swords were still in his hands.

At his full fighting weight, Zuko would have had more mass, even if he lacked an inch or two on the other boy. That, together with his fire-bending and years of combat training, would have been more than enough to tip the balance, ordinarily.

But Zuko had spent a month on a prison diet and been beaten daily, if not harshly, to confound his fire-bending. And only a few days previously he had endured the additional insult of being skewered to a tree through his shoulder as part of a Water Tribe rescue attempt for Sokka.

His moves now were not the muscular ballet of fire and sinuosity his uncle had instilled in him over the previous three years.

Still, Iroh would _not_ have been disappointed.

Curtailed by pain, Zuko was forced to focus on his edge, on the very lip of success. This was not what he had practiced. But that did not mean he could – or would, be easily beaten. His whole life had been about conflict, about beating the odds. This was just one of those battles.

So he used his newfound skills; that ability to call upon the core of his fire-bending learned in the haze of nausea and pain, his movements born of the memory of bone and muscle when his brain was unsure. The trust in what needed to be done, what he _could_ therefore do.

Jet was a marvel. A symphony of sinew and will, welded together into a coherent whole. Zuko had never met his like before, and hoped to never meet another.

The dance in which they engaged was extraordinarily compelling. Had Sokka not watched Zuko engage Aang in combat, or been less concerned with the balance of odds to his own life, he might have found himself caught up in the sheer beauty of the fire-bender and the rebel as they performed their _pas de deux_ in the morning sun. The flash of flame against the gleam of steel.

* * *

He had managed flame.

A small thing, yes, but his teacher allowed him to play with it. Encouraged its leap from hand to hand, over the head and even behind the back before, with a mere flourish of his own hand, his teacher drew all the heat and power from Aang's flame. It disappeared as if it had never existed.

Oddly, for a moment he felt as if his heart was extinguished as well. But the old man smiled , extended his own hand and a flaming rose appeared, delicate and ephemeral in its shifting petals. Aang observed, and the rose expanded into an uncut bush. As he watched, the bush became a conflagration, threatening to engulf the man, who merely gestured at it as it roared into a maelstrom. Only to die an instant later in the hand of the old man.

Who looked at Aang, and again smiled. Nodding, he gestured to Aang to raise yet another flame in his own hand. This time Aang thought about the way the flame had been brought to form a discrete, living and recognizable shape under the control of the master, and it occurred to him that the flaming rose may well have been the greater task than the maelstrom. _This_ was a fascinating concept for him.

Aang was an air-bender. When Jeong-Jeong had instructed him in proper breathing technique for fire-bending he was frustrated, because _no one_ knew better than an air-bender about how to use breathing in bending. Right? Ah, but there was a difference. Fire _consumed_ air, demanded it. On the other hand, air-bending worked _with_ the wind, without taking anything from it. So _perhaps_ the key to fire-bending was in learning how to tame the flame itself by controlling how much it was fed.

* * *

This time the boomerang took down a combatant on its return pass as well, and Sokka almost missed catching it as it bounced off the head of a tall boy he didn't recognize from his first meeting with Jet's "freedom fighters". That was because he was busy burying one knee in a younger boy's gut as he thrust the hilt of the machete hard against the skull of his companion. A quick follow-up kick to the groin as he grabbed the boomerang and the only one still standing was Pipsqueak, who towered over Sokka, brandishing what looked like a young tree.

"You don't fight fair," Pipsqueak grunted in dull surprise as he watched his companion writhe in agony on the beach.

"He's _alive_, isn't he? Hell, they're _all _alive." Sokka looked at the young man squarely, all the while trying to figure out just how he could beat him. "You _heard_ Jet. _He_ wasn't planning on playing _tag_ with me just now."

Pipsqueak looked over at the conflict between Zuko and Jet, which had backed up to the far end of the beach near the stream's mouth. Sokka was relieved to see that Zuko appeared to be the one doing the pushing. "Who is he? Your fire-bender friend?"

Sokka thought rapidly. There was absolutely _no_ point in giving Pipsqueak Zuko's real identity. "I told you. He helped me bust up a Fire-Nation prison. There are probably a hundred Earth Kingdom soldiers ready to go back into the fight, thanks to him."

He let his voice soften, "_We_ shouldn't be fighting each other. Right now, we can _all_ walk away from this, no harm, no foul. Whattaya say?"

Pipsqueak looked again at the dueling pair. By now, it was clear that Jet was getting the worst of it. "What about them?"

Sokka shrugged. "I can _maybe_ try to keep him from killing Jet. I'm not sure why I _should_…"

The giant looked at him in reproach.

"Alright, fine. I'll rely on _you _to make sure the others let us go in peace." Sokka searched Pipsqueak's face for a moment, tucked his boomerang in its sheath as he spun on his heel, and trotted up the beach.

* * *

Zuko was panting hard, but he no longer felt the pain of his shoulder wound, and the various cuts Jet had managed to inflict with those vicious swords did not bleed freely. One sword lay a good thirty feet down the beach, the other used more as a shield now than as a weapon as Zuko hammered blow after blow on his opponent. Jet's clothing showed scorch marks, and an evil burn festered across his forearm where he'd gotten careless, as another crossed his thigh. He would not walk away from this encounter unmarked, if he managed to walk away at all.

Zuko had _no_ intention of letting him walk away.

Finally the other sword flew out of Jet's slack hand as he stumbled to the ground, exhausted. Zuko himself could barely see in his own fatigue, but he pulled back his arm in preparation for dealing a final blow to the fallen boy.

And felt Sokka's hand on his arm.

"Wh – what are you _doing_? Didn't you say… he was… a … terrorist?" He looked at the Water Tribe boy in confusion.

Sokka put all his weight behind the hand pulling Zuko's clenched fist down. "He _is_ a terrorist. What are _you_?"

Long seconds as Zuko considered his words.

"Faah!" Zuko turned away in disgust. "We're _both_ going to regret this someday. It's a mistake to let _some_ people live." Zuko didn't want to think about Zhao.

"Maybe… Probably. But I'd just as soon _no one_ dies today if we can help it. C'mon. Let's get out of here."

* * *

Enough time had passed to leave their skiff grounded again. Zuko was too tired to help Sokka push it far enough out where it could float freely again, but Pipsqueak applied his muscles to the job as Zuko climbed wearily into the cockpit. Sokka hauled himself into the boat, reaching instantly for the mainsail halyard with one hand as he released the pin allowing the rudder to drop with the other. Then he waved thanks to Pipsqueak, already up to his thighs in the surf, as he began to haul up the mainsail.

"Zuko, can you manage the tiller while I get the jib up? Once we're well out we'll take a look at you. Can you wait that long?"

"And if I can't?" There was no more adrenaline in Zuko's blood, and he wanted to curl up and die now.

"Well, then, can you just fall overboard so I can get on my way without you?" As he spoke Sokka looped line from the mainsail around the tiller arm to hold it steady in case Zuko was serious.

"_That's_ the thanks I get for saving _your_ butt?" Zuko watched as Sokka tied off the mainsail halyard once the sail was fully aloft. Their angle to the current and wind now cast the sail as a shade to the still early morning sun. The altercation on the beach had taken up less than an hour.

Sokka paused a moment to pull out the first-aid kit and toss it Zuko's direction.

"I guess if you can complain you can last a bit, anyway. Just sit tight. Oh yeah, drop the centerboard for me, will ya?" And he pulled the head-sail bag out from its cubby in the fore section of the cockpit. Out on deck he worked to raise the jib, his mind wrestling with the problem of another debt owed to Zuko as he wrestled with the tangled sail.

"So, tell me why someone who is out to 'save the world' has so many enemies?" Zuko asked as Sokka wound yet more bandages around various parts of his body. He was starting to feel like a walking advertisement for an emergency clinic. There had to be better ways to live, and if he thought back he was sure he could remember some. Surely.

"Give us a break. Of _course_ the _bad_ guys are gonna object." Sokka hoped they had an opportunity to re-supply the first-aid kit soon.

"Huh. Bad guys. I like that. So why were _they_ the bad guys?" And Zuko was interested to hear how Sokka described Jet's followers as misguided and misled, _not_ evil or deranged. He was even surprised to learn that Sokka didn't actually hate even Jet himself; rather he seemed to feel sorry for him.

"He _should _have been someone great, you know. But look what the war did to him. He's no more than a common thug, and a heart-breaker," Sokka was glad to take the tiller once again to hand, and warned Zuko to be ready to change tack shortly.

"What? Don't tell me he broke _your_ heart?" Zuko looked at Sokka in some surprise.

"Why? Why do I bother to tell you _any_thing?" Sokka begged. He had obviously spent too much time in Zuko's company. He was starting to think aloud around him. _Not_ good.

"Oh. I get it. He broke your _sister's_ heart. Well, more fool her for falling for a handsome face."

"Shut up. He had Aang fooled also."

"Is _that _why she hates all guys now?"

"She _doesn't_ hate all guys. Shut up! You don't know anything!"

"Sokka, why did you defend the old Fire Nation guy?" And Sokka was so thrown by the sudden change of subject that he answered without thinking.

"He was just a civilian."

"But he _could_ have been a spy. He _could_ have wanted to kill your freedom fighter."

Sokka just looked at Zuko. "You _don't_ beat up on old people. You _don't_ burn people's houses down for getting in your way. I'm no hero, but _I _do know right from wrong." He released the rope that had been holding the tiller in place.

"We're gonna come about. Can you do the jib sheets?"

"Yeah, I can handle it. So. You're saying _I'm_ one of the bad guys?"

Sokka felt grumpy. "From where I sit, you _always _have been. You are what you choose to be. Okay, _ready about_!"


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: I've hit a bit of a bump in the road in writing this. Perhaps it is lack of inspiration with the long wait for another episode, or perhaps my imagination was just too limited in the first place to write anything really sustained over the long haul. In any case, I'll keep posting as long as I can, and thank you all again for your reviews and encouragement.

Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender is copywritten elsewhere and I would never consider breaching someone's copyright. Therefore, anything that follows must be considered exempt from all forms of litigation, lien, or demand. 

Chapter 7

"It seems the prison has fallen and all the inmates are gone," Katara said slowly, her mind still working to process the news.

"I _told_ you to leave it to Earth Kingdom forces," Toph was triumphant.

Aang merely whooped and soared twenty feet in the air in an exuberant leap.

"Well, no, or maybe," Katara chose her words carefully. "It wasn't the rescue team we asked for – there's been no word from them. Apparently some unknown force went into the prison and blew it up. It actually kind of looked like Fire Nation tactics to those who checked it out. And apparently the prison's own stores were raided. Strange. In any case, it happened before Sokka was due to be executed, and there's no mention of him in the list of casualties. So he's probably on his way here now." With this Katara could not repress a huge grin.

Toph frowned, her sightless eyes expressive of their confusion. "Why would Fire Nation bring down their own prison… Did you say the prison's own stores were used?"

"I did. And I know what you're thinking. Yes, Sokka did spend a fair bit of time with that Fire Nation deserter – what was his name? But how would he have gotten access?" Katara loved the thought that her brother had arranged his own escape, but she simply couldn't imagine how he would have done it.

Aang smiled. "Sokka's strength is using whatever resources are available and throwing them together into a plan. He did it, I just know he did."

"But-," Toph fell silent. "I know he's smart, and I know he generally comes through. But if that guy engineered his own escape remind me not to play any more pranks on him, okay?" She quailed at the thought of some hideously ornate revenge planned by the Water Tribe sibling in return for the various pratfalls she had organized for him in the course of their short-lived relationship.

Katara smiled. And took a wicked pleasure in knowing that Toph couldn't see her grin. A lifetime with Sokka had instilled in Katara native caution and the wit to stay on the aggressive as far as her brother was concerned. Well, no reason not to let Toph learn this on her own. Actually, this appeared to be the tack Toph took with anyone, anyway.

"Ah, Toph, you know Sokka's not so tough. All you gotta do is stay on his good side, and he'll forgive you anything," Aang spoke with easy confidence. After all, Sokka hadn't trusted him at first either.

She grimaced. "I'm not afraid of him."

"No one is," replied Katara. "And that's the problem."

--------

"It's just war," Zuko insisted. "There are no 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. Just winners and losers. The Fire Nation will win. It's our destiny."

"I don't understand terms like 'it's just war'. How is being dead different from 'just dead'?" The boat's heading had changed, but the destination hadn't. This was one discussion neither could afford to let end too soon.

"The weak die. You're a hunter and a warrior, Sokka, you know that as well as I," Zuko closed his mind to his own memories.

"So you lied when you said sending untrained troops to war was wrong?" Sokka tried to keep his voice even, but his temper was fraying.

"If you're fighting for your life will you allow your enemy any break?"

In his mind's eye the vision of his own vicious kick into another boy's groin rose unbidden. Sokka shoved it away. "Fighting for your life is a last resort. That's what the _rest_ of us are doing, not you guys. What is the Fire Nation fighting for? What is destiny, anyway?"

"We've come so far, accomplished so much. We _are_ greater than the other nations, so we owe it to the world to take our proper place. The other peoples need us to lead them," but Zuko had spent the last three years too far away from his tutors. He had seen too much. He was no longer sure what he believed.

And Sokka's sudden laughter didn't help.

"Okay, let me get this straight. The Fire Nation is going to drag the rest of the world, kicking and screaming, into some kind of age of enlightenment? For the good of everyone?" It was too funny. Of course, it wouldn't have been funny at all if Sokka thought Zuko really believed it. "Enlightenment by fire. And if we don't like it, well, too bad. We can just die."

Sokka wiped the tears from his eyes. "Who are you trying to kid? I remember you once said something about the cost of running a war. Back in that prison. That's the _rea_l answer, isn't it?"

"What are you talking about?" But Zuko didn't really doubt Sokka's ability to jump to his own conclusions.

"With all your wonderful innovations – and yeah, there's a lot to be impressed with, I can't argue that," Now Sokka's vision was filled with the lovely mechanics of the Fire Nation's giant ships, their self-propelled fighting machines, even the catapult and trebuchets that had made their lives hell. "You want, no, probably _need_ more. What kind of resources does it take to support all that?" He thought back regretfully to a simple fish-farming experiment he had tried at home, and his humiliation and anger upon realizing his vision required a greater scale than he could possibly realize.

"I don't know. Maybe you call it destiny, but it looks like simple piracy to me."

"No. You're wrong. You just can't understand."

"And I am so damned tired of that bullshit. Zuko. I may be ignorant but I am. Not. Stupid. The world is _full_ of perfectly competent thinking individuals. And most of them don't live in the Fire Nation! After a hundred years you would think your people would figure it out. Whatever it is you have to give isn't worth it. There must be a better way. There must be!"

Zuko's silence could have been taken for acquiescence.

"Aang remembers a time when there was peace. Of course, his people were still alive then. No cities had been brought down. I don't know. It's a lot to forgive."

"Do you think we want forgiveness? Do you think we could live with that? To be hated and feared is terrible – to be _forgiven_ would be worse!" The bitterness in Zuko's voice touched a chord in Sokka he hadn't known existed.

"Then what hope is there?"

--------

"Sir," It was late in the evening, well past the meal hour, and the old fire-bender sat alone with a low fire heating a kettle as he prepared loose leaves within a warmed pot. Katara watched him move with a deliberation that verged on ritual. "I just wanted to thank you."

"Ah, gratitude is always appreciated. Is that really what you wanted to tell me?" He carefully wiped another cup of non-existent dust and set it before the first, breathing gently on it. The porcelain creamed faintly beneath the heat.

"Well, I'd also like to know why," She admitted, as much to herself as to him. "Why _now_ you're willing to teach Aang."

"When before I was willing to help trap him?" He poured water into the pot, gazed placidly at the dried leaves unfurling and yielding their essence to the combination of heat and moisture, then raised his eyes to hers with a smile.

"Well, yes, then."

"You are cautious. And so you should be."

"So why should I trust you?"

"The avatar already trusts me – should I need your trust?"

"I think he trusts _me_ more! I know who you are, and I think I could bring you down!" Katara thrust out her lower lip, and tossed manners and respect aside.

The old man chuckled. "Do you indeed? Child, I have watched the world turn and snatch all my dreams from me one by one. And once I had great dreams – dreams of leading the world into peace. A marvelous peace, with the Fire Nation lifting the other peoples into a world of benefit for everyone."

He was not a tall man, yet his presence seemed to grow with his words, and Katara was sure the fire swelled. And then it dimmed, and she could barely make out the cup he held out to her.

"I thought for a long time that, while it may not be my place to find that peace, I could help lead someone else to do so. And then it seemed I was wrong. Well, perhaps I was not so wrong after all." His smile was gentle, but there was a world of sorrow behind that smile.

"I don't understand."

"Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, what do you think would have happened had _I _become Fire Lord?" His golden eyes challenged hers. Almost as if his question were not a fantasy.

"Why then, I think it would have been a good thing," she stuttered, uncertain how to answer.

"Do you know on what basis the Dragon of the West earned his title?" She couldn't keep up with him.

"The Dragon conquered the entire northern sector of the Earth Kingdom over a span of less than ten years. He was only stopped by the siege of Ba Sing Sae," Toph's voice filled the void, and the grey-haired fire-bending master reached for another cup.

"Nearly true. It wasn't the siege that stopped him."

"'Him', 'you', must we talk in riddles?" The young earth-bender held out her hand for the cup of tea.

General Iroh chuckled again. These girls charmed him as his niece never had. The two were prodigies in their own right; where the one lacked respect she made up for it in intelligence without malice. The other demonstrated a grace and vision that almost made him wish he were decades younger. Almost. But what they had in abundance that his niece wholly lacked was heart.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: This may be the last chapter I post for a while, since in a week I'll be vacationing without internet access. If we're all lucky I'll use the time to write like crazy.

Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender is copywritten elsewhere and I would never consider breaching someone's copyright. Therefore, anything that follows must be considered exempt from all forms of litigation, lien, or demand. 

Chapter 8

"And had the Dragon of the West become Fire Lord then, we wouldn't be here now. Young Aang would have found a world reasonably satisfied with Fire Nation control – oppression, call it what you will, but certainly a world far less ready for his appearance."

"You're arrogant in your assumptions," Toph didn't bother turning to the old man with her words, although she held out her cup for more tea.

"My brother's never really been to war. Like many, he believes that the way to keep a people conquered is through fear and intimidation. That is merely the way to renewed resistance and rebellion. Do you know that over half my battles were won without engagement of arms at all? Generals surrendered before me because I offered them the choice." Iroh filled Toph's cup and turned to fill Katara's before his own.

Katara shivered.

"And the other half?" She could not bring herself to raise her cup.

The sorrow on Iroh's face was open now, "Ah, my dear. Terrible carnage. I will never forget the pyres we burned, and only hope we did not disgrace the beliefs of those who fell before us." His almost-apology seemed aimed at Toph.

"Why do I get the feeling I should have come in on this a while ago?" Toph caught a brief whiff of something pungent as Aang breezed into the enclosure, telling her that he had been spending time with Appa. Aang did this more and more these days. Katara said Aang wanted to assure the giant beast of his love. Toph suspected something more.

Toph had learned to trust her nose as much as her ears where Aang was concerned. Never had she known a human to tread so lightly upon the earth, but it was only when he was literally air-borne that she completely lost track of him.

"No worries, Lightfoot. I don't think you've missed anything too critical."

Yet another teacup appeared, and Katara bended water from a nearby bucket to refill the kettle. It seemed they would be here a while.

"Let me see if I understand you. By some mix of - of flaming sword and, what?… tribute payments? – you think the rest of the world would have accepted rule by the Fire Nation and wouldn't have looked to welcome Aang as a savior they way they do now?" Katara chose her words carefully. She didn't want to offend him, but she found his suggestion unbelievable.

"For many, Katara, and perhaps for most, the _name_ of their lord is irrelevant. All that really matters is the cost of their allegiance. And the Fire Nation has much to offer in return." Iroh's voice was mild. And so it did more to compel their attention than any exhortation. "But that doesn't matter now. These last years have been as bloody as anything since my ancestor's extermination of the Air Nomads – for which I beg your forgiveness, Avatar, in the name of every soldier in my country to follow orders."

Aang's eyes were wide as he met a faded amber gaze. Katara realized that this was as close as he would ever get to an apology from the Fire Nation itself. She watched his jaw tighten, and he nodded. It was unlikely that anything more would ever be said on the topic.

Was it only Katara who noted that Iroh did not try to apologize for the ones who set the policy? Nor did he attempt to remove himself from that body. It was such careful wording that kept her listening carefully.

--------

Until they were far enough along on their heading to come about again, neither boy said anything further.

Sokka was frustrated. Those aspects of Zuko's personality he admired most were what completely stood in the way of their ever truly understanding one another. Or rather, perhaps they understood, but Sokka needed Zuko to back down, and Zuko never would. There was too much pride, too much strength of will.

They had a good wind today, and out on the water the sultry haze that had weighed so heavily upon them in prison was gone. There was a strong current off-shore, and Sokka found himself wondering at the variety of marine life the current supported. Zuko's eyes were hooded, and judging by the slackness of his grip on the gunwale he was half-asleep. So Sokka tied off the tiller to hold it steady and reached over to the port side of the cockpit, releasing a long, narrow hatch, where he found line, reel and rod. Another reach and he had his grub-sack. With some regret he opted to sacrifice a piece of jerked meat in the hopes of garnering a fresh catch.

His cast off the stern was low and lazy; there was no point in fighting against the boat's headway as it crossed on an angle with the current. Either he would catch something or he wouldn't. Given the amount of birdlife diving the swells around them, Sokka felt some confidence that he would not cast in vain. He wasn't so sure about his efforts with his companion.

"_This_ is your world, isn't it?" Zuko surprised him by asking.

"Well, not exactly. Too warm, isn't it? But I'm not complaining," For some reason, perhaps because they weren't fighting the current today, the water wasn't as rough, and although it was a bit bumpy and they still got a bit wet on the port reach, tacking to starboard felt almost like flying. Sokka felt a sudden appreciation for Aang's love affair with his glider. He grinned at Zuko.

"Actually, it doesn't get much better than this."

Zuko allowed a grudging smile of his own. He ached from his collection of accumulated injuries, he was at a complete loss as to what he could do to recover his life – if there was anything that _could_ be done, and he was in the bizarre situation of traveling with and even depending upon someone only a month ago he had disdained as a fool and an enemy. Yet he had to admit there was a real pleasure to be experienced in this marriage of wind and water. As for the fool? Well, he was better company than just about any ally he could think of.

"I'm no fisherman, but is the line supposed to bob and strain like that?"

"Oh crap! Quick! See if you can find a net or a gaff or something while I reel it in!" And Sokka grabbed the rod, nearly dislodging the tiller with his knee in his haste.

After approximately six minutes of yelling, apparent flailing about with the rod, and Zuko settling on Sokka's club as the best tool at hand, a large fish – easily as long as Sokka's arm and heavily fleshed - lay in the bottom of the cockpit, no longer writhing as its scales glistened in the sun. Sokka retrieved the hook from the flesh of the extended, curved lower jaw with satisfaction. He met Zuko's eyes, and both boys' faces were flushed in triumph.

"We are going to eat so well tonight!"

"We are going to feast!"

"Like – Uh, oh. We need to change tack! Ready about!"

--------

"Damn it, Sokka, why is life with you so difficult!" They were back on a port reach, back to weathering bumps and salty spray. The fish was stowed, and the idyll of the last half hour fully dissipated.

"Me? No, _you're_ the trouble magnet. You and all of that supernatural magic, bending-stuff," Zuko's accusation was blatantly unfair. Sokka had had nothing to do with landing Zuko in prison, and Sokka's own troubles were clearly the fault of his association with the avatar. If he'd kept his nose clean and stayed at home, he's be happily bossing the younglings on battle readiness right now. Man of the tribe.

Damn it. There was nothing particularly happy about that image.

"What's your problem anyway? We're fine! Weather's good, we've got good stores, and we're well on our way…" He growled.

"And when are you going to tell me where we're going, anyway?" Maybe Sokka was right, maybe he was taking out his own frustrations on the other boy, but riding the whim of the wind and fate had taken a lot out of Zuko. And after the last few months he didn't have much in reserves to spare.

"Nuts. Now is as good a time as any, I suppose. Hand me the chart."

In the rougher water they kept their heads together; Sokka would gesture at the mainland just in sight as he pointed to the chart. Zuko would look, nod, and trace their route along marked lines. Their boat's draft was so shallow that deep enough water was no great issue – their bigger concern was the tides and currents. But at worst, their destination should only be a day or so away.

--------

"There is no point wondering about 'might-have-beens'", Iroh said kindly. "I've broken my own head against that wall time and again. It is closed behind us. We must look to the future."

"I'm not so sure. I've been told that time doesn't matter to me," Aang said, and Iroh understood the desperation in his eyes.

"Time _may_ not. Perhaps you can see into the future as well as the past. I can't say. But the past _is_ done. There is no changing it. Or if there were, the world itself would curve into some other path we wouldn't necessarily even be on. No. Our task lies with the future, and we must find our place in it."

"General, do you know more than you have told us?" Katara probed.

"If I could see the future, who knows where I would be?" He responded. "What I know is that I must follow my heart. My heart tells me the world needs the Avatar now. So Aang must know fire-bending, and I can teach him. That is enough."

"I still don't understand. Years ago you wholly supported the war. If I heard you right, as Fire Lord you would have pursued the war to ultimate victory, but you didn't become Fire Lord after all. Then, for whatever reasons, you 'retired'. You've been with Prince Zuko as he chased Aang all over, but you tried to protect the moon spirit. And now you're willing to teach Aang fire-bending. What about Prince Zuko?" Katara was torn. She wanted to accept this man, but her head told her that nothing made sense. She wished Sokka were here to play the doubter's role.

"I told you before. We separated some time ago. We are both fugitives from our homes," although his voice was still gentle, there was an underlying note of steel. "I can only hope he has managed to avoid his sister and his father's forces."

"And I thought _I_ had problems with my family," Toph commented mildly.

Aang reached out a hand to squeeze her shoulder. "Does that mean Zuko isn't chasing me anymore?"

"I don't know for sure what he is seeking, Avatar," Iroh responded. "But I don't believe capturing you would do him any good. Of course, I cannot speak for what he believes."

Katara felt distinctly uncomfortable talking about Prince Zuko like this. It seemed somehow intrusive, even though she had raised the issue herself. For once, Toph seemed to share her unease, for she was the one to speak up, "I don't think this Prince Zuko is at issue here. It's you, General Iroh, that we have to decide whether or not to trust."

"Wait. I thought that had already been decided – I trust him," Aang looked at the two girls in turn. "Besides, where are we going to find another fire-bending master willing to teach me? We're running out of time!"

This time it was Katara who reached out and took Toph's hand. "I'm ready to trust him, Toph. Can you?"

Toph tilted her head on one side, as if testing the air for something beyond the senses of the others, and one bare toe dragged across the floor. Finally, after what seemed like hours, she nodded.

And the old man poured everyone yet another cup of tea.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Decided to sneak in one more before I leave. You will be hearing nothing from me before – at the earliest – August 7th.

Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender is copywritten elsewhere and I would never consider breaching someone's copyright. Therefore, anything that follows must be considered exempt from all forms of litigation, lien, or demand. 

Chapter 9

Sokka's first image upon confronting himself with the name "Prince Zuko" was of a fierce armor-clad figure hardly older than himself threatening everything Sokka knew and loved, surrounded by flames and confused with a childhood remnant of memory regarding his mother's death, too horrible to retain in detail. His next image was of a broken, half-starved figure with no accoutrements of royalty, a fellow creature linked to him as much by their shared death sentence at a merciless and arbitrary court as by their shared history.

The image before him, wearing Water Tribe blue on this purely Water Tribe ship of passage, was something somewhere between the first and second images. Still alien – Jet was right, no wearing of blue could ever disguise Zuko's pale skin or golden eyes, and it was obvious that he wore blue only as a matter of necessity and not otherwise – yet now so familiar. Sokka could no more read Zuko's future than he could read his own, yet he could also not discount their current history because of the past. His head told him over and over again that he shouldn't place trust with him. But he did anyway.

There are rules with the Water Tribe. Never travel alone. Trust your companions. Never turn your back on potential resources. Identify your weaknesses and find ways to bolster them. Look for the weak links. Honor alliances. Respect your enemies and do not turn your back on them.

The rules were a necessary distillation for survival. Sokka had always known that survival depended on his understanding of the rules. It was just much harder to apply these rules since the avatar came into his life.

In point of fact, the rules of the Water Tribe were guidelines for the life gambles taken every day. It should have come as no surprise that Sokka had the heart of a gambler.

--------

Zuko's first image upon confronting himself with the name of Sokka was, of course, bewilderment. It had no meaning to him for months. On the other hand, he was fully aware of the foolhardy bravery of a young Water Tribe peasant in confronting him and his soldiers all those months ago. The results of that encounter only reinforced his uncle's teaching that without adequate skill, bravery was worse than foolish. Still, there was something somehow admirable in the refusal to give up. Isn't that what his mother had always taught?

His second image of the Water Tribe boy; defiant still and more than willing to taunt him, yet extending his own intelligence to halt Zuko in his slide to despair. Going further yet, including him in a daring escape plan, protecting Zuko when he was injured by the Water Tribe, and standing up for him. For no better reason that Zuko could determine than that Sokka had decided Zuko didn't, after all, deserve to die. That he had changed his mind.

The image of the young man at the tiller was still something of a mystery to Zuko. He would willingly admit respect for Sokka's skills and intelligence. He had yet to fathom why what Zuko believed in or cared about mattered to the other boy, but slowly he was beginning to believe it had less to do with his identity as the banished Fire Nation prince and more to do with who he was as simply another person. For some reason, what kind of person he was mattered to Sokka.

In the Fire Nation there was no question that the rest of the world was inhabited by barbarians with no real concept of honor, barbarians who lacked the capacity to truly achieve greatness. This was embodied in the superiority of fire-bending itself; the other nations required the presence of their element to bend it, while fire-benders held the essence of their element within themselves. The most you could expect from the other peoples was animal cunning. Subjugation was a part of the natural order. How things should be.

After three years Zuko still did not doubt the certainty of Fire Nation conquest. But he was fairly certain that the costs would be too high, and reach far into the future.

---------

"I wish I knew more about weather patterns in this part of the world," Sokka mused as he looked at the still clear sky. The wind was picking up strength, and whitecaps broke over the small craft's deck regularly now.

"The worst storms come in the fall and winter," Zuko said reassuringly. "We should be fine this late into spring."

"Where I come from, bad weather always blows in off the water first. The weather back in the prison was clearly gathering for a storm. I can't help thinking something ferocious must be brewing somewhere," Sokka gloomily remembered how quickly and easily he had been caught off-shore when a major storm hit in the fall. If he just had more experience, more teaching, he would feel a lot better about this. Or if their boat were a lot bigger and he had an experienced crew with him.

"We're quite a ways south now. Maybe we'll miss whatever was brewing completely."

"Huh. When did you become an optimist?" grunted Sokka. "I think we should start looking for a place to hole up until conditions improve again."

Zuko pulled out the chart again. He saw no point in arguing, given the reality that with every wave they crested his aching body received another jolt. And he wasn't the one in any hurry.

"Look, there's a decent-sized port marked here. It's a little close to the war front but it should still be under Earth Kingdom control, which will make it safe enough for you to move around in and I should be okay if I keep my head down."

"If we get you different clothes you could probably pass for someone from the Earth Kingdom, as long as no one actually looks too closely. Most people don't. Of course, there's no way you could pass for Water Tribe."

"I've done the Earth Kingdom route before. I can do it again. There's been lots of inter-breeding over the years so light eyes and skin aren't that unusual."

"You know, that's a topic I really don't want to discuss. Ready about," Sokka was running course calculations in his mind to bring them into the indicated harbor with the least number of tack changes.

"Don't be naïve, Sokka," Zuko released the winch on the jib-sheet, holding the line taut and waiting Sokka's word to duck for the boom's swing. "Trade or war, any time cultures come together there will be interbreeding."

"Think I said I didn't want to talk about it," Sokka shoved the tiller hard the other direction and the boat came about. By now the two worked easily together, and Sokka approved Zuko's set of the jib with an easy glance, making his own adjustment to the mainsail.

"Huh. And since when does not wanting to talk about something mean we don't talk about it?" Zuko settled back on his side of the tiny cockpit bench, having made his own estimate of their course and determined to anticipate Sokka's next call to come about.

"Fair enough, I suppose. Okay. You're right, maybe. And I won't argue about the wrong or right of it, or even the matter of choice on the one hand and lack of choice on the other," Of course, just mentioning that last could have been something of a distraction. "But not in the Water Tribes."

Zuko gave a bark of laughter. "Are you kidding me? What makes you think your people are exempt from interbreeding? _In_breeding could be a problem, I grant you – probably is, in fact. But desperation breeds pretty strange bedfellows, even when it comes to the Water Tribes. You're not that different from the rest of us. Who would have thought you would be a snob, Sokka."

"It's not snobbery to prefer your own people."

"No? You accused me of believing in racial superiority. What do you call your 'preference'?"

"It's not a belief in superiority. It's comfort. Shared history and culture. I respect other cultures. Hell, I've been very attracted to girls from other cultures. There are even some Fire Nation girls who I would call… um, very attractive. I just think I've got a better shot at something… that will last, with someone from my own people," Even as he said it Sokka wondered if he was kidding himself. There were no girls his age waiting at home, and he had already loved and lost the best the North had to offer. Sokka had seen more of the world than men thrice his age; could he really go back to a simple life on the tundra?

"Right. Sokka of the Water Tribe, goes home to bed and hearth. Who are you going to take back there, Sokka? Some rube from the North impressed with your connections to the Avatar, only to see the dismal place you call a village? Well, maybe. If you're damned lucky. Come to that, you're right. Only another icicle would follow a guy to that life," Zuko snorted.

"You! You… know nothing," Sokka spat back, "You people with your easy lives can't even guess what kind of passion it takes to live at the world's edge. Only the strong survive, and even then only because we help each other. And sometimes, even that isn't enough."

Zuko sat forward, prepared to retort, but something in Sokka's face made him hesitate. There was pain layered upon pain, and Zuko knew enough about pain to respect it.

With that, both boys fell silent, contemplating the might-have-beens, dreams, and scars upon their hearts from reality.

---------

"It's been too long." Katara's voice was abrupt and brooked no argument. Toph simply shrugged, although she was prepared to give Sokka more time to make his way back to them.

"I don't know, Katara, he would have been on foot, without resources, and it would have taken him time to find us. I mean, we _are_ hiding from most people aren't we?" In reality Aang ached to leap on Appa's back and go off seeking Sokka with Katara by his side, heedless of direction or danger. But Aang had finally learned to ignore his heart's desire in favor of his duty over the last several months.

"And that's exactly why we should go looking for him. How is he going to find us when we're hiding?" Years of playing one side against the other with her brother left Katara well prepared to pose both sides of any argument.

Aang knew better than to tackle the logic of her reasoning, and Toph had learned not to question Katara's passion. Iroh, on the other hand, had spent enough years dealing with a head-strong adolescent to pose alternatives.

"Ah yes, good idea to form a search party. Of course, in the event he has managed to find his way here it would be unfortunate indeed for him to miss you. And then, there is the lost time for Aang's fire-bending training. But then, what price peace of mind, anyway?"

"I suppose, we don't _all_ have to go," Katara considered.

Aang instantly objected, "You're not going alone."

"No, I think Toph should come with me, and you stay here and keep up your fire-bending lessons."

"What happened to your fear of Iroh stealing me away to the Fire Lord?"

"Without Zuko, Iroh's not stealing you anywhere."

"Well, what makes you so sure Zuko isn't going to show up as soon as you disappear?"

"Honestly? He's not that lucky! No really, Aang. Do _you_ think we have to worry about Zuko?" Katara didn't really trust her own judgement as far as Zuko was concerned, but she trusted Aang.

"No, Katara. I would trust Zuko to listen to Iroh. And I trust Iroh. And that's been the point all along, hasn't it?"

"I'm not sure you're right, or that this is smart. But I do believe it's the right thing to do," Katara gripped her friend's hand hard, and turned to face the young earth-bender, the girl who had tested her patience with virtually every interaction.

Toph's preternatural sensitivity to those around her allowed her to respond to Katara's unasked question. "I'm with you. They'd both kill me if I allowed anything to happen to you, and Aang's safe enough with Iroh," she turned her sightless eyes to the Avatar. "Don't waste this time, Twinkle-toes. I'm expecting to find you at the top of your form when I get back. And I'll be testing you!"

He hugged them both. Appa was as willing to respond to Katara's commands as his own at this point, and Aang was ready to wave them all on their way when it suddenly occurred to him to test that strange connectedness he had as the Avatar to all things in the world.

But Aang could get no sense of Sokka anywhere in the land. And all around him faces fell. Even Momo spun around him in agitated circles when he admitted his inability to trace Sokka's whereabouts on his first try.

"Well. You've never tried this really long distance, have you?" Katara did her best to keep her voice reasonable, and her thoughts on an even keel. "Perhaps he's too far away, or even not land-bound. Wait! Aang, do you think you can reach out across the water to find him?"

"I don't know. I'll try. I don't really know what I'm doing here…" But Aang dug his hand within the earth anyway, reaching out in ways even beyond Toph's ken, seeking his friend, his brother.

"I think you're right, Katara. I think he's traveling by water."


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: I hope you all weren't expecting a quick reunion...

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action thereby.

Chapter 10

The interconnectedness of all living things that the swamp-dwelling water-bender had espoused appeared to be tenuous at best when it came to bodies of water, but it was better than trying to search through the open air itself. Aang knew he had gotten some sense of Sokka, although it lacked any clarity or direction.

On a whim Aang tried to extend his consciousness up and through the skies. As an air-bender his awareness of air currents was a familiar map of each layer and pressure gradient for hundreds of yards around him. Remembering his lessons in earth-bending from Toph, he focused on shifts within those layers to identify minute flying creatures and even a rising cloud of dust from a startled rabbit-dog out of sight down the road. This was a different kind of reaching than through any life-force connection.

Hand still on the ground, he closed his eyes, willing himself to listen and feel, blurring the boundary between earth and sky. Vibrations passing through the earth were different than those carried in the air, and his mind reeled at the complexity of it all. But then, he thought to himself, it's probably just a learning thing, like the way we coordinate all the information our eyes, ears, nose and touch send us all the time normally. And yes, the dichotomy between the two elements was clear and stark; he could feel a change, details shifting and fading as he tried to filter some coherence from the whole.

Concentrating hard, Aang next tried to marry his sense of air and earth with Katara's lessons on water-bending, and he staggered as within his blood he felt a tide beneath the earth trickling through the soil, a maze of evaporated water droplets rising in the air. The wave of sensations overwhelmed him in confusion, and in a sudden bout of nausea Aang's stomach revolted.

Katara had reached for him when his other knee hit the ground to join the first. Toph was at his other side instantly, and both girls winced as Aang's breakfast made an unwonted reappearance. As Katara bended water to clean his face Toph turned the ground before them to sand, shifted it to bury the noxious spew, and raised a bench behind them for Aang to sit on.

Aang gulped air raggedly, and his face slowly lost its greenish tinge.

"What happened?" Katara asked, concern for Aang all but wiping her worry for Sokka from her mind.

"I, um, I got lost a minute there," he couldn't think how to explain what he had tried to do.

"You are trying to do in mere months what usually spans a decade or more of study, Aang. I can only guess at the difficulties you are encountering, and only _you_ will be able to find your way through them. While we can teach you our individual disciplines, we cannot tell you how to blend them, or what is possible and what is not," Iroh's gaze was appraising. The child before him had astonishing power, and his ability to tap into it at such a young age gave Iroh hope he had not felt for many years. But he worried at Aang's recklessness, and its potential for catastrophic mistakes.

"Idiot. You pushed yourself too hard," Toph said bluntly, but she softened her words with a gentle slap on his back, leaving her hand there in affection.

"Oh, Aang, I'm sorry. _I'm_ the one who pushed you. Are you alright?"

"No, I'm fine, really. It was just… strange. Too much information all at once. But I think I can do it if I can just figure out…" Aang realized they had no idea what he was talking about, and sighed. Sometimes this Avatar business was lonely. He smiled at Katara and took Toph's hand to give it a reassuring squeeze. "Let me try again. I want to give you a direction to look for Sokka."

"We don't need it really. I mean, we can assume he's headed this way from the prison, and he's traveling by boat. What other information do we need?" Toph asked.

"We can't be sure he'll know to head _this_ way. It was only one of three possibilities we were considering when we lost him," Katara countered. "He may be heading for either of the others, and going the wrong direction."

Toph's silence spoke volumes.

"But it certainly makes sense to check out the coast from here on up to start with, anyway," Katara continued hastily. "It won't take long with Appa, and we can maybe even be back by nightfall to plan what to do next if we don't find him by then."

Aang relaxed, and Iroh smiled behind his hand.

--------

The morning's smooth sailing was a memory as gale winds drove deep troughs in the waves. Sokka thought longingly of Katara's and Aang's bending skills, and mentally whipped himself for becoming dependent on forces he could neither understand nor emulate. He focused instead on watching the tell-tails on the sails and trying to time the action of the waves. For a non-bender, the only option was to work with the elements, not attempt to control or fight them.

He had reefed the main down a full third of its height, and was considering the advisability of taking down the jib. The arguments against doing so including losing some pointing advantage – which was moot since he was hard pressed to maintain any heading at all – and the more telling argument as to the danger of climbing on the bow deck in these plunging seas. His stomach clenched at the thought of a misstep.

They were close; the harbor was in sight.

Zuko looked over at Sokka, noting the intensity of the other boy's grip on the tiller with both hands and the grimness of his expression. He understood when Sokka had lowered the mainsail partway, folding it along the boom and lashing it down. The boat slowed and bucked a bit as the smaller sail resulted in less wind power. The slower pace was frustrating but Zuko felt a bit less like a gnat clinging to a raging rhino.

"Maybe we should take the mainsail completely down. Can we steer with just the head sail?" He yelled to make sure Sokka heard him, even though they were only separated by a few feet of sodden air.

"It might be a mistake to take too much power away," Sokka croaked in response. "We're almost there. Without some sail power we'll never make it in; we'll just get tossed about out here and drift wherever the current and wind take us. But maybe there's enough power in the jib to do the job."

Sokka tried to feel the current against the tiller, tried to gauge how much headway they would make on the jib alone. Taking the main down was certainly a safer proposition than pulling down the jib. Then he misjudged a swell and the bow took a dive beneath the surface that left both boys sputtering and clinging frantically at anything solid.

"Zuko! We're gonna come about again soon. I want you to take the jib halyard excess off the cleat and tie it around your waist. I'll do the same with the main sheet. No point in getting this close only to be washed overboard and lost!" Sokka gave Zuko a death's head grin as he watched him fumble at the rope with swollen fingers.

He decided to leave the mainsail up. He did not want to prolong this any longer than absolutely necessary, since he was honestly afraid he may not be able to maintain any kind of heading at all much longer. And he could easily imagine them dancing on the harbor waves with no real control without the force of the chaotic winds in the mainsail. It was worth the risk.

--------

"Shit."

It hadn't taken much to leap to the pier, still less to grab the line thrown and cleat it down as Sokka clambered up with another spring line to moor the boat cross-fashion to minimize the waves' impact. A motley collection of buffers was draped over the gunwales and deck to protect the hull from impact against the decking of the dock extending out into the harbor. Zuko had fallen to one knee on the initial leap, but refused to complain, or acknowledge any pain by so much as a limp as they made their way ashore.

His scatological comment referred to three large sailor-types who looked askance at Zuko and Sokka as they crossed the decking from the pier to the crabbed collection of shoreline establishments of this port town. Signboards clattered in the wind, salt spray was now replaced by occasional buffets of rain, finally released from the heavy clouds that dimmed the afternoon's light to late evening. No one with any good business would be expected to be loitering in the open air in this weather.

"I really don't need anyone giving me problems now…" Zuko eyed the grizzled sailors with at least as much disdain as they poured his way.

Sokka surprised himself and the prince with a sudden backhand that missed his face but left a glancing blow across Zuko's shoulder. Another time such a touch would have signaled a fireball to the offender's face, but Sokka had gone beyond that point, without either one acknowledging the bizarre familiarity.

"Neither of us needs a hassle just now, do we?" He muttered, and gave the suspicious sailors an easy grin. "Hey. Rough water, isn't it? Guess there'll be good salvage pickings today."

"More fools they who doubt the ocean spirits in these times," said one tough in response. His own gaze measured the young men before him. Both were young, indeed, gaunt and showing fatigue in the stiffness of their movements. But both were clearly well-armed, and there was something hard in their expressions that belied their youth.

"Good you're not water-bending bastards to challenge the sea's bounty this day," seconded another, noting their dress but letting his eye linger on Zuko's pale skin.

"Like we'd be so dumb," Sokka slapped Zuko soundly on the back and pushed him past the trio claiming the water-front. Grabbing his collar, Sokka pulled Zuko into the doorway of the chandlery that marked the first business dockside, not because he thought they had any need there, but just to save them from further confrontation.

"You are a true coward."

"I am a true pragmatist. If you want to argue about it, step outside and do so with the idiots outside. I've got better ways to spend my time." He thought their maps were probably current, but it was reasonable to question the proprietor as to the status of the war front. Who else would know better?

While Sokka argued chart lines Zuko assessed the shop's other supplies with the eye of a commandant forcing himself to lower his sights to the concerns of a quartermaster. But the simple reality was that he had no real idea what, besides restocking their medical supplies, they might need. That and clothing free of obvious distinction.

If Sokka was surprised at the collection of oddments Zuko dumped on the counter in front of the proprietor he hid it well. Haggling completed and payment exchanged, they stuffed their purchases in the oilcloth bags that had kept their borrowed kits relatively dry. The two left the shop, eyes searching both for the wreckers haunting the pier and the empty warehouse the shopkeeper had admitted would be available to give them shelter from the storm, and then for the tavern where they would find a warm fire and their evening meal.

Sure enough, the ghouls were gathered near their small boat, and Zuko swore under his breath. Again Sokka raised his hand in restraint, but his own eyes narrowed, and he dropped the bag to reach for his boomerang.

"I don't suppose you feel like yet another skirmish today?"

"I don't know why you thought we could avoid one in the first place, with brutes like that," As he tossed his bag aside and reached for his broadswords, Zuko felt exhaustion fall away from him and adrenaline course through his limbs.

"No fire-bending."

Zuko rolled his eyes, and smirked at Sokka, "I'm no idiot. And fire-bending will not be necessary. Are you going to help or just enjoy the show?"


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Okay, folks. I adore you all (cuz you're reading this, of course, and some of you are even submitting reviews!), but I've done something really idiotic and involved myself in something that takes up a huge amount of time – for the next three years! Since I also have a family to maintain, writing kinda hits the bottom of the food-chain. I won't be updating too terribly often any more. Sorry.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action thereby.

Chapter 11

"Just watch? Don't tempt me. Look, can we just _see_ if we can warn them away, first? I still say we don't want to draw attention."

Zuko shrugged, and took the lead as they strode back down the dock to confront the trio examining their boat.

"I _suggest_ you step away. Now." And Sokka heard the royal note of command in those few words. He suspected his own voice would have cracked to challenge the men before him, but he underlined Zuko's statement by lightly swinging his club against a piling. It made a satisfying thwump.

"Well, boy, there's a toll to moor on this dock, and we're just here to collect it," said the shortest and thickest of the three as he raised himself up from his stance at their caravel's thwart, the other two spreading out across the dock in practiced fashion. The biggest one was on the right, dour and slow of movement. The one on the left was well muscled with saturnine features, marked by a strong jaw and a memorably cleft chin.

Sokka's experience with their ilk was largely limited to the encounter with pirates in the fall, but the son of a historian had no business ignoring tales told by even the unlikeliest source. If nothing else, Sokka was a good listener and observer. So he had sized up this trio on their first appearance, accurately recognizing them as the ugly scavengers they were; men who claimed as their own the sea's bounty from foundered wrecks, heedless of home port or duty owed. No land's laws attempted to control this traffic, but no society condoned it. Not exactly pirates, yet certainly not ordinary traders. It was a fine line to tread.

Zuko was no more experienced with wreckers than Sokka, although perhaps more familiar with their practices. He had, after all, spent a full three years at sea, and he would be the last to claim this experience had exposed him to only the best society had to offer.

"Well, you can take that up with the chandlery, where we're paid to date. Surely this isn't weather to argue in?" Sokka kept his tone easy, since he saw no reason to brawl needlessly. But his grip on his club was firm, and he took up a stance well clear of Zuko, who brandished his dual swords with no comment beyond his opening remark.

Their point was clear.

The wrecker leader took stock. His earlier assessment of these young men as possible soldiers on leave, or worse, hardened troops en route to some special assignment, was strengthened by the confidence of their stride, the practiced ease with which each held his weapons, the grim determination in the dark one's scowl, and even more in the dull look behind the pale one's eyes. Hell, much was said in their willingness to challenge greater numbers and men easily their superior in age, size, and experience. Young they may be, but it was readily apparent that neither was a stranger to death. They _could_ simply be fool-hardy. Or they could be very dangerous. Given the younger's attempts to avoid confrontation, the elder's obvious bandages, it might be easy to assume the former. Then again…

He hesitated a bit too long.

The larger man on his right swung his halberd in a broad stroke that, had they bothered, would have left both boys rolling their eyes. Sokka was almost annoyed at how easily he disarmed the brute with an underhanded swing of his club, followed by an almost lazy ax-kick on the backswing as he recovered, that sent the man into the drink, fighting the wind and waves.

The wrecker on the left had enough time to adjust his attack, augmenting his single-handed undercut with a pike by also drawing an unusually long dagger. Neither weapon had the grace to go overboard as the backside of Zuko's blades made short work of their initial thrusts, and the cleft-chinned wonder of the east had the dubious distinction of suffering dislocation of his famed jaw even as he watched the follow-through of his opponent's kick send his pike easily 30 feet off the dock into the deep waters of the harbor. The dagger suffered a similar ignominious fate; following the pike by mere seconds, if substantially shorter yardage, as a result of a simple scoop of an elbow in a sideways jab. Another kick took the larger man's feet out from under him for a hard fall on the deck that left him breathless and immobile.

"_You_ said not to draw attention. That guy drowns and someone might make a fuss." Zuko motioned with his chin as he sheathed his swords in a lovely maneuver that spoke more of poetry than efficiency. Sokka had been sloppy.

"Worse luck, he'll get hyperthermia even if he doesn't drown. Cover me while I pull his ass out." Sokka slid easily into the frigid water, having shed his belt, boots, and tunic as Zuko spoke. Both noticed the chief wrecker's nonchalance as Sokka shoved his compatriot, coughing, up for Zuko to heave up onto the dock. As Sokka himself climbed up onto the dock and shook himself like a polar bear, Zuko nudged the wrecker leader with Sokka's club, pointing at the shivering form on the dock before him.

"I can see you're gentlemen of…discretion. Perhaps we can be of benefit to each other,"

The wrecker made only perfunctory efforts at assisting his sodden companion, completely ignoring the man Zuko had left prone. He raised an eyebrow at Zuko's words.

Sokka hid a shiver in pulling his belt tight over his tunic again. The brief break in the rain that had overseen their altercation was clearly about to end. He wanted to find his way in front of a fire. He slicked one hand through his hair to disburse excess moisture as he readied the thong to hold it back in its wolf's tail with the other. What was Zuko up to?

"Are you content that we owe you nothing? Good. Now. _You _come with us to the tavern and tell us news of the war and this port. We'll buy you a drink and consider this all even. Oh, _they're _not invited." As Zuko tossed the club back to Sokka his other hand rested again on the divided hilt of his dual swords, his eyes never leaving the wrecker.

The corpulent wrecker blinked once, and grunted his assent. With another grunt, toss of his head and backhanded slap to the recently rescued brute on the dock, and an absent kick to his other companion, he turned his back upon them, leading the way up the dock before the two boys.

Sokka grinned. Zuko had gall, matched with the arrogance of command that even the rudest recognized. With a quick glance behind him to note the other two wreckers now assisting each other, pointedly ignoring the boat moored nearby, he stepped into place behind Zuko. Who didn't bother to check on either the wrecker's partners or Sokka's willingness to follow. That was okay. It appeared that Zuko's presumption would garner them perhaps the best of intelligence sources. Sokka would just take care to ensure the wrecker was not the only source they consulted, remembering his conversation with the chandlery proprietor.

-----------------------------

Appa lowed in protest as the wind and rain whipped his eyes and coat. Katara, crouched on his head, stroked one horn consolingly as she considered their options.

"Okay, Sugar Queen, this officially sucks. There's no way Sokka would stay at sea in this weather!" Toph was beginning to question her role in this whole expedition. In the air her earth-bending provided no useful function whatsoever; she felt worse than useless. And if Sokka were in fact traveling by sea there would be no mitigating this situation. So why did Katara want her along, anyway?

To keep her away from Aang? It was an evil thought, but one that could not help but worm its way into her consciousness. It didn't help that the howling wind whipped her voice away from her own ears, robbing her of any certainty that Katara even heard her complaint, and that with it the wind had brought stinging sprays of rain.

She couldn't know that Katara held within her a memory of Sokka at sea in a storm; that without Appa and Aang Sokka would surely have perished. She couldn't protect them from the wind – she wasn't Aang – but perhaps she could do something about the rain…

It was but the work of an instant to freeze a latticework of raindrops over Appa, holding it in place by his horntips and…

"Duck down!" she called to Toph as she anchored her framework to the high points of Appa's saddle even as she extended it to cover the beast's whole body, reinforcing it as more rain fell in alternating crystalline patterns, wary of the extra weight this brought upon the bison's flying prowess.

Toph's trust in Katara was sufficient to immediately heed the older girl's warning cry, but she was not pleased to discover herself encaged when she afterwards attempted to sit up, even if the structure did block the bulk of wind and rain.

"Not helping!"

"Oh, just…_bite me_," these last words were whispered under her breath, but Katara had enough experience with Toph's highly developed sense of hearing not to hope she hadn't been heard.

"Look! Just find a place to land and let's talk about this intelligently!" Toph yelled. "Be reasonable!"

And the reality was that Katara valued her own rationality above even her passion, for she attributed her small group's successes to date largely to her own common sense. She conveniently forgot her escapades into romanticism. She was, after all, merely a teenager.

So she pointed Appa back towards the shoreline, looking for some secluded copse of trees or overhang of rock that would give them shelter while they decided what to do next.

--------------------------------

"Excellent, Aang. I do believe you may be the best pupil I've ever taught," there was an air of wistfulness in Iroh's tone as he thought of his own son and nephew. Neither of them could be said to have the sheer natural talent of the Avatar, but Luten had come close. And Zuko, ah Zuko. The boy had a reservoir of power waiting to be tapped, but the maelstrom of confusion underlying his own sense of self had, to date, proved an almost insurmountable barrier for him.

Iroh had tried teaching Zuko meditation, had focused on perfection of form and technique in the hope of providing him with a foundation on which to rest his questioning spirit.

But the boy's passions were too strong.

Aang hardly heard Iroh, his attention entirely caught upon the dancing flame centered on his palm. His breathing was carefully even, his stance firm – almost as if he were earth-bending – but the taut grace of his other hand as it guided the flame was clearly caught somewhere between water and fire, and the fire itself curled in upon itself impossibly, colors shifting as Aang coaxed it into simple but alien forms.

As Iroh watched, he puzzled out the difference the Avatar brought to fire-bending beyond the innate borrowing of form from the other disciplines. It was, quite simply, a playfulness and joy that Iroh had not seen in such purity in all his varied experience. Aang was able to divorce his bending from his purpose, and the elements responded to this with a freedom that was astonishing. Iroh wondered if this were a result of Aang's youth or something particular to his personality; he suspected the latter.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Confession time. I'm a few chapters ahead here on the writing. I have buddies beta-ing for me, and oddly enough I find myself afterwards questioning all of us. So. I think I'll go ahead and head this direction with this story, although a few other paths beckon… The sad reality is, I don't have the energy to explore those other paths.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action thereby.

Chapter 12

Toph was not a big fan of mud squishing between her toes, but it was a simple matter to simply _change_ the mud beneath her to solid rock, so she didn't complain. After all, it wasn't really Katara's fault that they had been caught in the storm – if it _had_ she would have been quick and loud in her condemnation, more out of principle than because she held any real ill-will for her. As the youngest it was important to maintain her position as someone whose opinion mattered, and Katara had a habit of taking the lead that annoyed her. Even if she agreed with the choices Katara made.

In any case, it was a relief to be back on solid ground, where her earth-bending senses could give her back her independence and strength.

Driving rain and gusting wind had forced them well inland before they could find adequate shelter, and worry for Sokka clenched icy fingers round Katara's soul. Aang didn't really understand – while he had lost everyone and everything, Katara had the sense that the boy had a broader, simpler understanding of relationships than she experienced. As for Toph, the ease with which she left her parents behind spoke volumes for her familial relations.

But Sokka was an integral part of Katara's identity. He drove her mad, but he was always there to catch her when she fell. He had shielded her from the true horrors of their mother's death, bridging the emotional gap of their father's grief by stepping in to care for Katara in their mother's place. She could only imagine his own scars from that period. She knew better than any of them Sokka's willingness to risk himself, his odd pragmatism married with the Water Tribe code of morality – a code he honored better than she did, for all her vaunted admiration of their cultural heritage. She knew that what would bring Sokka back to them was his connection to her, his duty to Aang, and his own stubborn refusal to be beaten by the Fire Nation. But they had always been together – could he really find his way back to her alone?

---------------------------------

"My usual, thank you – and put it on _his_ tab. Ah, the house brew's pretty popular around here," this last was aimed at Zuko and Sokka, even as the wrecker gestured at Zuko for the tavern-girl's benefit.

"Tea for me, and some sake on the side," Zuko nodded at the girl. It was unlikely he even saw her.

"Uh, I'll try the house brew, and a big, I said _big_ bowl of that stew I smell, and bring me a cup for some tea as well. Thanks," Sokka flashed the girl a smile, his blue eyes candidly playing across her pleasant – if overworked – features appreciatively. "Oh yeah, a bowl of stew for him, too. He'll remember he's hungry soon enough." This last was whispered _sotto-voce_ as he gestured at Zuko.

She returned his smile warmly as she began to draw their drinks. They withdrew to a table - happily, for Sokka's still damp clothing - quite near the hearth. He only hoped Zuko would retain the presence of mind to _leave the fire alone_! He was now quite experienced with Zuko's emotional charges on ambient flame. Such expressions may be hard to explain here.

A tall mug of plum wine appeared shortly, along with a teapot and carafe of warmed sake. Perhaps the mug of home-brewed beer was larger than normal, but the tavern owner was tending beasts in the stable - unruly with the storm's barrage on the small port. No one would notice or care.

In other days Sokka would have dived immediately into the bowl of stew, poured over steaming rice before him by the tavern-girl. He was more cautious now, and admittedly curious as to how royalty would behave.

Zuko poured first a few swallows of tea, then in another cup a more diminutive amount of sake. His gestures were casual yet elegant. Sokka swallowed hard to avoid a caustic comment.

"To a swift and final end of this accursed war," the wrecker raised his mug.

Sokka noted the toast's ambiguity, and wondered if Zuko would have hesitated to raise his own cup of sake to something more clearly alien to Fire Nation goals.

"Indeed," Sokka nudged his own mug against Zuko's cup. Each now appraised the wrecker.

"I've nothing much to tell you. It appears to be something of a standoff here. There's talk that the Fire Nation is on the run for fear of the Avatar, but I've yet to hear of any real retreat. Men still die every day. An Dui is safe enough with the sharks of the South prowling. Are you with them?" His gaze took in again their Water Tribe blue garb suggestively.

"We ask the questions, not you. We want to know about the Fire Nation – not major troop movements – rumors and the like, and the Avatar. What can you tell us?" As Zuko's eyes narrowed, Sokka wondered how many scenes of similar interrogations had put Zuko on their trail in times passed. His presence was commanding, definitely intimidating. How could someone so young project so much assurance, so much – yes, it must be said, tightly leashed violence?

Sokka shuddered, wondering yet again if he had made a tragic mistake. Without closing his mind to the remaining comments of the wrecker, he turned his attention to the food before him. At least he would be well-fed and ready to act.

The wrecker spewed on aimlessly for a while, angling for a refill, but it was evident early on that he had nothing really of value to share. His only tidbit, less than half a rumor, was of a great fugitive from the Fire Nation, a general – or was he an admiral? - hiding out and gathering followers behind him. The wrecker had smirked at the thought of Fire Nation deserters flocking to this officer's cause. Shortly thereafter Zuko dismissed the man with a gesture, and taking his mug with him the wrecker withdrew to the other side of the room.

Zuko was surprised at the vehemence of Sokka's condemnation of the wrecker and his judgment on the Fire Nation deserters. He suspected the influence of strong drink on the Water Tribe boy, and took careful note of his own measured pace through his sake. The pale burn as it slipped down his throat was a respite, but he had no interest in numbing his brain for the sake of its pleasure.

The local brew was admittedly heady, but Sokka had mitigated its effects with not one, but three bowls of the tavern's heavily spiced stew, and after emptying his mug he shifted easily to tea, emptying the pot. Zuko had surprised himself by consuming nearly two bowls during the sailor's recital, all without noticing either the empty bowl before him or its replacements.

"Ease up or we're not going to have enough to pay for this meal," Zuko warned as it appeared Sokka intended to eat yet a fourth bowl-full.

Sokka winked at him, "Oh, I'm not worried about that. I think our friend behind the counter would probably let us work it off." Zuko followed his eyes to the serving counter where, feeling their gaze upon her, the pretty tavern girl smiled and gave them a nod.

"I am not playing up to another girl at your urging," Zuko blushed to remember the prison warden's daughter and the intimacies he had shared with her in the interest of arranging their escape.

"Oh, not you this time. I think she likes me."

"Forget it. Don't you think we've made ourselves memorable enough around here?"

"We? I'm not the one playing lord of the land to the local riff-raff. The brawl on the dock we could probably get away with – I doubt if anyone saw it, thanks to the storm keeping people inside. But this place is full." Sokka had noticed the respectful distance their table was given by the tavern's patrons, and had no doubt that it was a response to the forceful presence of the glowering young man at his side.

"Fine. Just don't compound it by giving that girl reason to remember you." Zuko added more sake to his shallow cup, pondering the wrecker's words carefully.

"Too late. One look at these baby blues and she was long gone," Sokka batted his eyelashes at Zuko as he scooped up both their bowls to return to the girl behind the counter.

Zuko scowled. Perhaps he would finish off that carafe of sake after all.

------------------------------------

"No, Avatar, do not use one of the other forms in defending during this training exercise." Iroh spoke mildly, but with authority. Aang had noticed that the old man tended to dispense with his name during training, perhaps to formalize their relationship. "While your versatility will no doubt serve you well in battle, while you are learning you must focus only on fire-bending."

Aang was wonderfully quick to pick up a given move, and his expertise with the other bending forms had instilled in him an openness that Iroh found refreshing. He had overcome his hesitancy in using fire for attack, and Iroh recognized the strength and resolution of earth-bending that grounded his blows. His breath control was astonishing, and within only a very few days Aang had mastered the tricky business of sending forth the flame in a controlled and dancing arc fully tens of yards from his body. It was a pretty show, and Iroh knew it captured the boy's heart the way using flame for aggressive maneuvers could not.

But Aang's favorite defensive postures remained air-bending and water-bending, and falling back on his own unmatchable speed and grace. He could not seem to grasp the concept of meeting another's flame attack head-on, of splitting it with one's own force, robbing the flame of life's breath and thus stealing control of it. And then turning it back on one's opponent.

It made no sense. Iroh had watched as Aang sparred with Toph, easily turning everything the girl threw at him back upon her, even blindfolded. Watching these matches had been one of the most astonishing experiences of Iroh's long life. The sheer volume of stone moved by the diminutive figures was enough to shatter whole buildings, and his mind was taken back too often to the memory of watching such attacks crush the units he sent in to battle. Luckily, his armies had come before few such benders in their campaigns, and Iroh silently considered how well his reputation would have survived if they had.

He had also noted the tension in the form of the young water-bender who watched the bouts beside him, several buckets of water within easy reach. He watched as she brought her hand to her mouth on more than one occasion, stifling a cry to end the fight out of fear of fatally distracting one or the other of the combatants.

And yes, occasionally one or the other was bruised or battered when they weren't quite quick enough to bend the stone away or shield the attack.

But if he wasn't battling Toph, Aang still fell back on air- or water-bending. It was frustrating.

"Now, show me your stance. Good," He nodded as Aang brought his steepled fingers before him, elbows akimbo and feet firmly rooted. Without warning he fired off a blast of flame at the boy. Aang shot up in the air a dozen feet, easily dodging the blow.

Iroh sighed. Perhaps he needed to find another approach.

"Sorry," Aang said contritely. "I don't know what's gotten into me. You know, water-bending came pretty easily, but Katara used to get impatient with me because I didn't work at it very hard. I really worked for Toph, 'cause earth-bending is just so different. I really thought fire would be easier again. And it is, in some ways."

"You still _fear_ fire, even though you can summon it and control the creature you create."

"I don't think so," Aang said doubtfully. What he had feared was his own inability to control it, not the fire itself. Right? He had a healthy respect for it.

"No? Then here, let's see what you can do with this," And this time Iroh simply tossed the fire-ball instead of hurling it at him.

Aang caught it easily instead of trying to dodge, sending the flame into a sudden spin as it skimmed across the surface of his hand before, with a sudden grin, flipping it back to Iroh. "Shoot. Do it again and I'll show you something fun!"

There were worse ways of learning defense than as part of a game…

A/N: Total side note to those of you following this story – dare I call you fans? (wouldn't want them to feel lonely) - Cuz I'm feeling "puffy wit' pride"; "Prison Conversations" appears to have been read by fully 400 people, if there is anything to judge by the stats. And that's allowing a bit for folks doing re-reads. On the other hand, "Passages" has about 200 hits per chapter, so maybe PC has a LOT more re-reads than I would have expected. Either way, it's a kick in the pants for me! Believe me, I fully appreciate the quality of your comments, and even more so your willingness to keep reading this SHIP-free story…. (as of 9/4/06)


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Midterms are over, but now the push is on for the finals. College and grad school were never like this. Forgive me for the delay. Yet…I'm starting to wonder if I'll take this a different direction than I'd originally planned. Well. We shall see.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action thereby.

Chapter 13

"I'm giving her the fish," Sokka said as they walked out the door of the tavern into the evening, the storm now somewhat abated in intensity.

"Is that supposed to be some kind of euphemism?" Zuko grunted in response. Sokka had spent more than enough time for Zuko to finish his sake, leaning on the counter, apparently successful in charming the serving girl, who constantly returned to him even as she kept hands busy drawing drinks for the other customers.

"Huh – what? Oh, shit, no. What kind of guy do you think I am, anyway?" Sokka had spotted the warehouse down the street, and pointed it out. Full dark had fallen, but there were scattered lanterns hanging from various doorways. "The fish we _caught _today. It won't keep when the heat comes back tomorrow, and we won't eat more than half for breakfast, so it seemed a fair trade for tonight's dinner. She's thrilled to be getting it; I'll deliver it in a couple hours, when she gets off work."

"Are you sure that's all she's expecting you to deliver?" Zuko took a perverse pleasure in baiting Sokka, seeing that he was actually embarrassed at Zuko's implications. He surprised himself, since raw humor was hardly behavior he had indulged in before, and would not have tolerated in others when he still bore the privileges of his rank. But this was Sokka, the tormentor who, back in prison, had convinced him to push his own experience with the opposite sex past all previous boundaries.

And perhaps Zuko had consumed rather more sake than was precisely good for him.

Sokka chuckled suddenly. "Well, Prince Charmless suddenly develops a sense of humor and a way with words. Imagine that."

"I do believe you're evading the subject," The warehouse wasn't locked. The chandler had told them it was empty anyway.

"The subject is your descent into the realm of us mortal beings, your highness," Zuko was fully aware of Sokka's deft turn of the conversation to put him on the defensive instead of offense. He just wasn't sure quite how to take control back.

As Sokka closed the door behind them Zuko raised one hand alight with flame. There were none to see his fire-bending now.

"Knew you'd come in handy… The chandler said there's a bin somewhere with a good supply of dry wood we're welcome to as long as we replace it. Since you're the one with the light, you want to look for it?" Sokka unshouldered his kit-bag as he contemplated the shadows for a good area for bunking down.

"An empty warehouse is a sign of bad economics, or bad management. Either goods aren't available, shipments are delayed, or the merchant's lost faith in his customers. Which do you think it is here?" Zuko strengthened the flame in his palm as he scanned the open area around them, revealing a second story of flooring suspended from the building's supporting beams along three walls, with additional vertical beams running down the center line. The wood bin was against the near wall. He tossed his own kit-bag down.

"You're the one with the fancy education, but I'm guessing some combination of the first two options this close to the war front," Sokka replied. "People always need stuff, and there didn't seem to be any shortage of money in the tavern." He crossed over to help Zuko with the wood, since he needed to keep one hand free for their "torch".

"No, there wasn't. And this close to the front that doesn't make sense, either."

Sokka shrugged, "Maybe it was full of travelers, not locals. Maybe the town makes a good living selling supplies and general support to the army. Maybe it's full of retired pirates. I don't know. I don't think it's really our problem."

They built their fire on the stone floor in the area open to the roof, so the smoke would have a chance to lose some of its heat as it rose in the windowless space. Neither particularly cared about smoke-blackened beams or rafters. Theirs wouldn't be the first fire to do so.

-----------------------

"No one in their right mind would have stayed at sea in those conditions."

"Sometimes you don't have a choice, and storms seem to blow up awfully quickly at these latitudes."

"It seems safe to assume he's pulled ashore somewhere, anyway. The question is, where?"

"Did he somehow get passage on a trading vessel? He could work crew, of course. He wouldn't have had any money, so he couldn't have bought a berth on a regular passenger voyage. We don't even know what we're looking for." Katara was feeling discouraged.

Back at the retreat setting out on Appa to find Sokka had seemed perfectly reasonable. Sitting with Toph under her improvised earthen storm shelter, with no real idea of where they were, let alone how to find Sokka, Katara was mentally kicking herself for being an emotional fool.

"Don't forget fishing boats. There's another kind of boat we need to watch for. Look at it this way; we can avoid all Fire Nation warships since he'll be very careful to stay clear of them," Toph had already decided that the sooner they returned back to Aang and Iroh, the better. And this had little to do with the fact that there would be dry, comfortable beds and good food waiting for them.

"He won't be on a fishing boat, either. They generally return to their home port after a day's haul, so he wouldn't make any progress that way," Katara returned. She needed to think. What would Sokka do?

"He's your brother. What would he do?" Toph's question echoed her own mind.

"He'd head for the nearest port, and then he'd find a way onto whatever ship was sailing the right direction first. And he'd be as likely to stowaway as to work, cause Sokka can be a lazy ass." Katara thought rapidly. "So the thing to do is find that port and start asking questions, discreetly, of course."

"Because it will be in Fire Nation-occupied territory."

"Right."

"You did check out a map before we left, didn't you?"

Katara and Aang had poured over the map with their Earth Kingdom hosts once the Fire Nation had made it clear in which prison Sokka was being held. It was a fair bit inland, and she recalled the nearest seaport would have been a bit to the south, at the mouth of a large river. And there was yet another port further away but to the north. Would Sokka himself have any real idea where he was? How long would it have taken him to make it to the sea? Would he have found help? Would he have dared? Which direction would he have gone?

"Of course. It's been, what, five days now? He's already on the water, so he caught a boat that left sometime between now and then. Call it one day's land travel and we can narrow it down a bit more, but all the merchant boats leaving from at least two ports heading south over the last four days…"

"If you're trying to tell me it's impossible to find out about all those ships, let alone search them for someone who is possibly hiding as a stowaway, all without letting on to the Fire Nation that someone is looking for a Water Tribe fugitive, well, I'm way ahead of you," Toph commented dryly.

"So we should just go back," Katara sighed in defeat. It didn't help that Toph seemed to have been a step ahead of her all the time.

"When the storm blows over, yes, we probably should. Aang will be worrying about us."

"And he's already got enough problems with learning fire-bending and worrying about Sokka."

"Well, I doubt if he's quite as worried about Sokka as you are. He seems to have a lot of confidence in him." Katara thought she detected a slight note of reproach in this statement.

"I can't just do nothing, Toph. You don't understand. He's my brother!"

"You know, I'd give a lot to feel that strongly about someone," and this time there was no mistaking the genuine sympathy. "And you're right, doing nothing made you stop thinking clearly. So you did something, and you've got things figured out now. Don't you?"

Katara laughed, for the first time in weeks. "Yes. I've figured out that I think better on my feet, or with someone kicking my butt. And you, Toph, are just as good at that last as Sokka. Thanks."

"Um, sure. My pleasure."

"And next time, we bring Aang. We need that Avatar-sense of his to locate Sokka. This is a waste of time without him. And we bring Iroh to keep the fire-bending lessons going. And we just leave word for Sokka to stay put if he does find his way to the retreat because we'll use it as our home base anyway, checking in there at least every other day."

"Whoa, girl. Now you've jumped a bit ahead of me."

"Of course. We work better as a full team anyway. It was stupid of me to forget it. Really, Toph, you and Aang should have known better than to let Iroh sway me like that."

Toph inwardly groaned. Katara was back on form. And when she was right, she was right. There was a reason the spirits kept the Water Tribes' numbers limited. The rest of the world simply couldn't have abided a people so quick to adapt to a new situation and place their stamp of decision upon it.

---------------------

They had passed time arguing about the possible reasons for the town's apparent prosperity as opposed to the evidence of the empty warehouse. Zuko postulated high-stakes cargos, like rare and highly suspect drugs or exotic animals, timber or spices, his imagination caught by Sokka's offhand comment regarding pirates. Sokka's pragmatism asserted itself; he bet on services provided to the military of both armies, whoring, foodstuffs, and alcohol. They came to agreement that the owner of the warehouse was, in all likelihood, hardly honest or politically committed to either side in the conflict.

Zuko criticized Sokka's inability to dispose of the wrecker without dumping him into the water; they discussed just how he could have done otherwise. Sokka swallowed hard, bowing to the other boy's expertise.

Sokka acknowledged his relief at Zuko's mastery of Jet, and admitted his concern giving Zuko's reduced physical state. Zuko bristled, and responded by acknowledging surprise at Sokka's ability to take out all but one of their opponents before resorting to his smart mouth.

Before he went to the boat to fetch the fish, Sokka made Zuko submit to an examination of the various bandages that appeared more stained with fluid seepage than warranted, even by the day's activities.

Everything was framed in banter and insult. But Zuko's comments lacked a surly edge, and Sokka tried to be gentle as he pulled crusted cloth from suppurated wounds. As a result, when Sokka did leave both felt a bit awkward.

It was, after all, the first time they had been voluntarily separated in over a month.

------------------------------

There is an implied social contract whenever humans come into contact with each other. Alliance is a give and take of advantages offered and accepted; hostility the belief of superior rights granted over others through an exchange of aggression over cooperation. There is everything in between and, of course, those few outliers that purely negate the social contract.

Objective philosophers agreed that the Fire Nation's aggression fell on an extreme, but still recognized the social contract. The friends and relatives of the dead were not objective, and would be hard-pressed to recognize such an abstract concept.

Sokka's mother had died in a Fire Nation raid. Sokka's own life had been threatened by the Fire Nation prince on various occasions, and he had threatened in kind. Yet each had been placed in the odd position of benefiting the other time and again over the last several weeks, and neither had failed to do so. The rationalizations for their actions existed, and as time went on they compounded, becoming intertwined in a convoluted recognition of honor, debt, and respect.

A reality that had begun in distaste for death, in general, had morphed into something else. And each was beginning to admit it to himself.

------------------------------------

"I almost beat you this time," Aang crowed over the game-board.

"Perhaps we are done for the evening," Iroh agreed, wondering when he had lost his edge at pai gao. It was rare indeed when anyone managed to get within five moves of his winning strikes. For a child, even the avatar, to get within three was an event only mollified by Iroh's reminding himself that this child was not only really one-hundred-and-twelve (a specious excuse, since most of that time was spent unconscious) but also capable of potentially accessing the memories of a thousand lifetimes.

He did not, in fact, dismiss Aang's naturally competitive nature, or his obvious familiarity with the game, from his equation. He just had a healthy respect for his own expertise.

"It was an interesting game, young one."

"I thought so, too. Sometimes splitting up your counters works against you, doesn't it?"


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: I wanted this whole story to touch a bit on grey issues that challenge our notions of common morality. However, this chapter reflects some "mature subject matter" as defined by common social mores, and as a consenting member of our society, I accept a responsibility to provide a forewarning (relax, folks, nothing explicit and pretty mild language overall). I make no moral judgment upon either of our two heroes. They are merely creatures of their time and circumstances, doing whatever it takes to make their way in a very confusing world. In essence, I've given both boys now opportunities for gratuitous, somewhat anonymous sex (see "Prison Conversations" for Zuko's more bizarre experience). There are benefits to such encounters, but Zuko already knows there are costs also. Sokka may be aware of this on a cautionary basis, but he has yet to learn its truths. Zuko is not sure enough of its universality to try to teach him.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action thereby (Whew!).

Chapter 14

When Sokka returned to the warehouse later that night he was distracted. Or at least, so it seemed to Zuko, who had taken advantage of the time alone and the broad expanse of the warehouse's empty interior to work through a series of exercises, stretching muscles that had cramped up from the day's boating or been overtaxed in his bout with Jet in the morning.

At first it had felt odd to be so wholly alone, but then he began to relax, perhaps more fully than at any time in months. There was no one to observe or comment on mistakes or awkward landings, no one to maintain a stoic front before.

No one but himself to demand perfection.

Now he grimaced freely at the dull ache that defined his healing shoulder wound, remembering his own weakness when the spear had pinned him to the tree, and Sokka's odd combination of panic and competence in removing the spear and staunching the flow of blood.

In the Water Tribe boy's absence Zuko considered the bizarre transformation in his relationship with Sokka, brought about by their time in prison together and since. It was, perhaps, easy to explain in terms of an alliance against a common enemy, but there was more to it, and he knew it.

It had to do with a sense of recognition of some kind of shared duality, perhaps no more than that they were of similar age, similarly caught up in circumstances largely beyond their own control and demanding of them more in the way of inner strength and decision than either was quite prepared for.

Zuko had grown accustomed to Sokka's frequent challenging of his assumptions and knowledge, and it no longer enraged him when his efforts to ignore him were shrugged off. He even suspected that occasionally, perhaps often, Sokka deliberately pushed into what should have been forbidden territory just to force Zuko out of whatever funk he might have slipped into. He was also perfectly aware that Sokka no longer really considered him an enemy, despite pronouncements to the contrary, and that he was engaged in a not subtle attempt to win Zuko over to his own way of thinking. He considered this naive on Sokka's part, since he had no choice but to support the Fire Nation, no matter where his reasoning may have led him.

It did not occur to him to try to change Sokka's world view, although he might have wished for some sympathy from the other boy. Or perhaps, he thought that there was already too _much_ sympathy and not enough _respect_ between them on Sokka's part.

Still, he had grown strangely comfortable with Sokka's lack of the formal trappings of respect for his royal status. Sokka's easy familiarity was completely alien to Zuko and he realized that, aside from his immediate family, he had never known anyone to consider him for _himself,_ not for the 'Prince', in line for the throne of the Fire Nation, and certainly not for the banished prince and failed heir. Well, perhaps that was going too far. Sokka was far too canny not to have considered Zuko's past. Oddly enough, it did not appear as any real liability to the other boy.

As he had when they were in prison together, Zuko wondered just what it was Sokka saw when he looked at him.

Normally, that is.

But tonight, Sokka had been practically oblivious of his presence. And that was odd. It was also unacceptable. Zuko's whole premise on continuing to travel with Sokka had been the camaraderie they had developed together, that and his need to have Sokka acknowledge him finally as the better man. He felt he was still a long way from the latter, but at least generally he thought he could count on the former.

"So? Was I right? Was she satisfied with the fish?" Zuko tossed another log on the slumbering fire, using his own energy to speed the fuel's ignition and brightening the immediate area in which their bedrolls were laid out. The assumed intimacy between the two young men was new for both of them, and Zuko was fully aware that he had just pushed beyond their previous limits.

"I hate you so much, sometimes."

"Shut up. You flirted with her outrageously and you know it. What was it you said? 'Once she saw these baby blues...' It was disgusting,"

Zuko was enjoying this. Not only did he have Sokka's attention but he had him on the defensive. It was _very_ satisfying.

"How was I to know she was, um, well… that she had such an appetite." Sokka seemed, for once, at a loss for words. Ah, but not really. While he clearly was hesitant to elaborate, he couldn't resist testing his wit on Zuko's metaphor.

"Oh really? Does that mean you gave her the _whole _fish?" Nor could Zuko refrain; the line was too good, the allusion too obvious.

Sokka grimaced, if in pain for the bad pun or simply because he was really was not prepared to respond to such an _intimate…_inquiry, could not be determined.

"Well, perhaps I should say we are welcome there for breakfast, and I just didn't feel like _parsing_ out fillets."

Zuko silently whooped. He appreciated the neat riposte to his comment; _parsing out fillets, indeed!_

"No, I don't suppose you did. Some things just don't bear thinking of."

In retrospect, Zuko admitted to himself he would have liked at least a portion of the fish they had caught together that day. It had been a rare moment of easy, exuberant labor undefined by person or position, a matter merely of place and luck. He suspected this would have brought a particular savor to the meal. On the other hand, he fully appreciated what he suspected was Sokka's complete disregard of anything beyond the girl's attentions once the ostensible reason for his presence back at the tavern had been set aside.

"But did I hear you right? We are _both _welcome there for breakfast? The last time _I_ made such a comment you said something to the effect that 'three's a crowd'."

"She's perfectly aware that we're traveling together. So yeah, it's no big deal if you show up as well," Sokka grunted. "Spirits know, I've earned it."

"Indeed? Do you intend to elaborate?" This might be interesting, since Zuko's own experience was somewhat limited and, admittedly, unconventional.

Sokka considered. "I didn't press you about what happened with the girl in prison. You tell me about that and I'll tell you about this."

It was Zuko's turn to pause.

"I hardly think the experiences are comparable. You had a choice, I didn't." Zuko said shortly. He was far from prepared to talk about what he had done with the prison warden's daughter to ensure her help in their escape.

"I know, I know. You only did what you _had_ to," Sokka nudged the unburnt ends of the firewood towards the flames with a lazy foot. "Yet, you were pretty possessive when it came down to it, and you put some extra effort into keeping the guards and her father from figuring out that she was involved. Why?"

"It was a matter of honor. I don't need to say more."

"Right. Honor is everything. I get it. But you knew she was a kind of, I don't know… a slut pretty early on, right? How do you feel possessive under those circumstances?"

"What if I told you your tavern girl went home from your meeting to her hot, sweaty husband, maybe the asshole you pulled out of the harbor?"

Sokka's stomach churned. Leave it to Zuko to conjure up an image that would provide a wholly _compelling_ argument. "Score one for the Fire Nation. Okay, I get the point."

"Maybe not. Entirely."

"What do you mean?"

"Was it worth it?"

"Aw hell. What do I know?"

He thought a moment longer, considering the all-too-brief minutes with the serving girl and their sweet pleasure, not once but twice, so much more intoxicating than anything she had poured into a customer's glass. "Okay, yeah, I guess so."

"There you go. That's the point."

----------------------------------------------

The silence between the two young men was one of understanding that stretched perhaps more deeply than any of their previous communications. It was odd that such musings between them touched more surely than their other conversations before or after their mutual escape from death. But, then again, perhaps not. Some considerations are more universal than others.

"Shit. I really didn't think you were so smart."

"Wise up. You're not the only one around here capable of coherent thought."

Zuko sat back, basking in a rare moment of superiority, only marred by the vague question of how long it would last.

"Hey, Zuko. You ever been in love?"

Now this was going so far beyond any of their previous discussions that he was at a total loss. He remembered vaguely having challenged Sokka similarly, but wasn't this before either of them was aware of the other's experiences with sex in general? It was truly presumptuous on Sokka's part to assume that Zuko would share anything so intimate with the peasant. But then again, Sokka was nothing if not presumptuous.

"Love? I don't know what you're talking about." He couldn't think of a more honest answer, and he rarely gave Sokka less than honesty these days. "What about you?"

"Forget it. It doesn't matter. I don't need your scorn."

Too late.

"You know, it will be worse if you _don't_ tell me," Zuko injected a note of wryness into his comment. "I'll imagine some other shopgirl, perhaps, or… no! Did that shithead warden keeping the earthbenders imprisoned have a daughter _you_ seduced? ... No, you said something about your sister wanting to rescue some earthbender boy… You might as well tell me - my imagination will make you look more sordid than any truth could possibly do."

Silence was an interesting commodity between them. Sokka had noted its tendency to be more revealing the longer it was honored.

"Fine. Just tell me first. _You _ever been in love?" Sokka tried his usual turn-about card.

"Honestly?" Sokka smirked and made an obscene gesture at Zuko's hedging response.

Perhaps it was the aftermath of their interlude of perfect understanding, perhaps it was a simple desire to keep this easy feeling of openness between them going on, but Zuko decided to expand upon the question he thought he had already answered. Had he been in love?

"No. My sister had this friend, an attendant, whatever you call them. She was… I don't know, different. Kind of shy, I guess. So, we were all kids, and I... I _liked_ her. I did stupid things to impress her, to try to protect her from Azula's crap. It was a waste of time. She's one of Azula's assassins, now. Just shows you how effective I was." Zuko kicked himself mentally even as he found himself admitting this to Sokka. But he also felt an odd sense of relief at expressing his childish interests.

"Oh crap! Is she the one with the knives? Or the other, flexy-bendy one? Whoa! They're both, well, _scary_, big time! And yeah," Zuko could hear the grin in Sokka's voice without having to see his face, "They're way pretty... I mean, hell, I don't blame you!"

Sokka's mind traveled down a pathway he had trodden too many times in the past.

Zuko snorted, "I thought you were somewhat intelligent. These girls are dangerous, just like my sister. Did you suddenly get brain-damaged?"

He derided the other boy, but nonetheless felt relieved that Sokka was no less sensitive than he to the attractions of his sister's companions.

"Weren't you just telling me about being in love with one of them?"

"I didn't say I was in love! What, I wasn't more than twelve then! That's nothing!"

"Aang's twelve. He's infatuated with Katara." Even as he said it, he wondered at the wisdom of admitting such a thing.

"Shut up. Your sister? She's pretty enough, though."

"_You_'re not the Avatar. By the way, I'm going to forget you said that."

"You're scared." Neither of them questioned just what Sokka might be afraid of.

"I don't think she feels the same way."

"I don't think you want to be telling me this." Zuko found himself oddly reluctant to exploit this particular evidence of Sokka's vulnerability.

"You are so right. Tell me again. About your being in love." Sokka inhaled sharply, happy to be off the topic of his sister.

"I wasn't."

"Which one?" Sokka already knew better. He pressed.

"Fine. Mai. The one with the knives."

"Really? I think I'd have gone for the flexy-bendy one. I mean, think about the possibilities!"

"Damn it! I was twelve!"

"Is it my fault you had a lack of imagination?"

"Is it my fault we are looking at this from a post-pubescent perspective here?" Zuko growled. Somehow this whole conversation had escaped his control. As everything did when Sokka was involved. It was time to reassert control.

"So. I told you. Your turn."

"Wow. I mean, your story has, what? Potential. You, know, for the future." And Sokka's voice dropped with a certain finality.

"Mine doesn't. It's dead."

Which made Zuko wonder how much he wanted to pursue this. Except that, he had to now. They'd gone too far. 

"So. You were in love." He had no idea what he should say. He hadn't been raised to consider anyone's _feelings_ beyond his own, only his obligations. But he was dimly sure that Sokka had, at this point, no obligations to him. It occurred to him that, when it came to understanding the Water Tribe boy, this love thing was a question that really mattered. "Did it make you a different person?" 

Sokka seemed to consider for a while.

-------------------------------------------------

"So. Tonight we camp here, and first thing in the morning we head back. Right?" Of course, the plan could change, but Toph liked to have some sense of what to expect barring unforeseen circumstances.

"Yes. That's the plan. I hate to think we wasted the day," Katara thought wistfully of how long it had been since she had felt her brother's embrace, the comfort of that family connection.

"He's okay, Katara," Toph was uncomfortable in this role; it was too new, too strange to have anyone care about what she thought, to care about anyone else. "Ol' Sleepyhead escaped his execution, and he's too lazy for anyone to go out of their way to kill otherwise, right?"

"Sokka's not lazy."

"Right. And I'm the queen of diplomacy."

Silence reigned perhaps a millisecond too long.

"Well. He works hard enough when he has a goal, when he knows people are counting on him."

"Or when he likes what he's doing, sure. Don't get me wrong. It's the lazy ones who are the smartest; they figure out just how much they have to do to get by, and find the best way to do something just to save themselves the effort. That's Sokka all over." Toph shrugged and grinned. "I admire that. And he plays dumb to avoid effort as well. Boy. Does he have you snowed."

"But not you? Toph, he had you sharing your food with him, cause he pretended to forget you were blind and picked off your plate at the end of the meal. He knew your pride wouldn't let you call him on it." Katara protested.

"Sure. Ask him about the scars on his knuckles when I was too 'proud' to call him on stealing my meal."

"You mean you _didn't_ let him get away with it?" Katara was, at first, delighted. "Wait. He was still doing it the day before he got caught by the Fire Nation."

"I'm blind, not stupid. If I _sometimes_ let him eat my leftovers, that was my business."

Toph hadn't realized how observant Katara was. She had thought it was a joke, a tacit admission between them that she liked Sokka enough to allow an occasional intimacy in the form of a harmless reallocation of a few mouthfuls that she didn't need. A little thing. An easy return for the unspoken gift of a few springy pine boughs, stripped of their heavy stems, in her allotted tent-space. Or the easy hands-up into Appa's saddle in those early days; the quick nudge aside when a silent blade sailed through the air where her head had been a moment earlier; or even the bodily lift-and-carry at the sudden shift from benevolent Aang to omnipotent Avatar, a shift she simply couldn't gauge. Neither asked, neither acknowledged, these simple gestures. And Toph was not prepared to discuss them with anyone, even his sister.

"Okay, then. So we agree that it's okay that we go back and get Aang's help?" Katara smiled to herself. She recognized the familiar pattern. Sokka had won over even Toph.

There was not a woman young or old at the South Pole who did not bow to Sokka's whim, and it had astonished Katara to see her brother work his annoying charm at odd stops throughout their long journeying, to consistent if not inevitable success. She couldn't understand it, and was wholly unaware of her own susceptibility to it, given her understanding of his all too obvious failings.

-------------------------------------------------------

"Do I know enough now to try lightning?" Aang was hesitant to ask, but in the circumstances it seemed a reasonable request.

Iroh hesitated to answer. He had taken on his nephew's training when he was no older than the Avatar, and he still questioned Zuko's readiness to take on the more advanced forms of fire-bending, even though he believed fully in his talent and ability.

And he sometimes wondered if the tutors' willingness to accede to his niece's every demand had not perhaps contributed to her lack of mental/ethical growth in pace with her development as a fire-bender.

Could a parallel be drawn with the Avatar? It was a question he weighed heavily as he considered how to answer the boy's question. A part of him laughed at the comparison, the Avatar's guileless eyes against the all too knowing gaze of Azula. And yet, he remembered the horrific death toll at the Avatar's hands during the siege of the North. He considered the blood that still weighed upon his own hands. Was there truly any difference?


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Confession time. I had hoped to keep this close to canon as long as possible. However, it was brought home to me quite forceably that I was relying on Zuko's relationship with Sokka to bring the boy around to the light side (ahem). In canon, he's finding his way there otherwise. So. Unless I want to wholly abandon my premise I must abandon canon. Wave bye-bye, all, to canon, cuz this puppy's going off on its own from here on out. Happily, it will be ending sometime in the next six or seven chapters – I don't have an epic in me. Come to that, I'm not sure I'll have anything left in me when I finish this tale.

On that note: go read "Erosion" by magnusrae, and acastus' "Prince Iroh". These are both so wonderful I just clasp the skin beneath my eyes and pull in awed amazement. Now there is imagination and research beautifully married in delightful prose…

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action thereby (Whew!).

Chapter 15

So young, and yet so perfect. For all intents and purposes, almost a blank slate. For a teacher, he was the ultimate challenge.

The elderly fire-bender considered the young avatar and marveled at his predecessors and their forbearance. He remembered his own young son, his forays into warplay and fire-bending, statescraft and negotiation. How he had reveled in LuTen's precocity, seeing it as a sure sign of his progeny's propensity for greatness. The young man had not in any way disappointed his father's expectations. Except.

He had died too soon.

No parent expected to outlive the children who survived infanthood. And this had been the first step in Iroh's understanding of his place in the universe.

So young, and yet so perfect. Iroh bowed his head and thought of his brother.

The canker that ate at Ozai's soul was two-fold. His first-born, a son hardly born by his favored wife Ursa, nearly killed her, and struggled not just through his first year but ever after. A handsome boy, he apparently lacked the fortitude of Sozin's line, fighting for every minor victory among his tutors just as he had struggled to draw breath.

And the beauty that followed a mere year later, strong and assured from the moment of her birth, grasping without hesitation every bauble offered, every surety or fealty. It took years for her to acknowledge the very existence of her older brother. The same years that it took for him to recognize her alienation from him. A curios dichotomy, not recognized by either parent, and thus not accepted for its distinctions by either sibling until much too late.

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Iroh considered the depths of his commitment to the balance of the world, and weighed it against the evidence of his senses, praying that his perception of the world and his place in it would not force him against his inclinations. Iroh was a man willing to parse his perceptions against the world quite finely, much as it hurt him. He had done it before. He would do it again.

He had seen destiny's face, with his own name writ in stark contrast on its pages against a maelstrom. He understood that his immortality hinged upon the choices he made now, without knowledge or promise as to the outcome of those choices.

He wished ardently that he knew more of his nephew, knew if he lived or not, if his soul had achieved any further healing. And he reminded himself that at this point it simply didn't matter.

------------------------------------------

The flight back to the Earth Kingdom retreat was most notable for its lack of acknowledgment by either Toph or Katara. Both were too deep in thought regarding the last day's events to even notice each other with the rising sun, still shrouded in the remnants of the previous day's cloud cover.

---------------------------------------------

Aang was so tired. All he really wanted to do was reach out to Katara or, Katara lacking, Toph. He wanted to clutch himself to one of these girls, whom he secretly admitted he saw as far more than training masters. He had hidden his adoration for Katara behind a "familial" devotion that she had seemed most comfortable with, and that allowed him the liberties of the close hugs and easy contact he'd observed between the Water Tribe siblings.

The relationship with Toph was, in some ways easier, and in others much more fraught with difficulty. Toph was so much more demanding, so much more critical. Like Katara, she had left her world for him. But unlike Katara, Toph had left with little on her own to gain, and he was uncomfortably aware of it with every privation their haphazard life put upon the privileged life of a daughter of a great house of the Earth Kingdom – it wasn't what she said so much as what she didn't say.

In his heart he knew that he embodied for Katara her hope for a better world. It was weird and incredibly stressful, but at least he knew what she expected of him.

But he had no clue what he could offer Toph in return for her sacrifices. He suspected it had something to do with acceptance and appreciation for who she was far beyond being a child of the Bei Fong clan. But he was too young and too innocent to understand the attraction his need for a blind girl had on that same girl. So he merely concentrated on that need, again too young to wonder if it conflicted in any way with his need for the other girl.

In the hours before dawn broke he found himself, for the first time since his awakening from the iceberg, without the comfort of either girl. Even as he reconciled with himself his ability to sleep without their presence it occurred to him that, as Avatar, savior of the world, perhaps he deserved the surety of a beloved presence. And perhaps this was something he could in fact insist upon. Aang shifted more easily in his sleep.

-------------------------------------

He had deliberately drawn his niece's attention in that last confrontation, complacently sure that he formed the greater prize to his brother and that Ozai had made sure that his daughter knew it.

But he was an old man, bereft of most family ties and long past ambition's ideals. Had he died in the altercation he was comfortable with the knowledge that he would be little mourned. That his nephew would be among the few who would find his passing hard to bear pained him, but more at the thought of adding to the boy's losses than for any sorrow on his own part.

But for some time now, he had wondered at the ease with which he had eluded his pursuers. He had buried to his mind's eye the thought that his all-too-idealistic nephew might have had something to do with that. But perhaps he had been wrong, perhaps he was no longer sought by the Fire Nation because he _had never been_ the main object of the hunt after all. Had Zuko sacrificed himself for his uncle? The thought broke his heart and led him, finally, to reconcile his heart's desire and his mind's realization to offer his services to the Avatar's needs.

It was absurd to believe that Iroh, First Prince of the Fire Nation, was not without resources unknown to his brother. His years in the Earth Kingdom as a conquering warrior had not been ill-spent – he'd grown to love the people his troops had over-run, had invested his own fortune as much in the resources of the Earth Kingdom as in the Fire Nation. As canny a soldier in business as in war, Iroh had created facades behind which to hide his identity as investor – he was fully aware how wary an Earth Kingdom investor or even consumer would be to consider any venture fronted by the hated Fire Nation.

Although he had accepted he could not finally assail its walls by military means, even in the venerable city of Ba Sing Se Iroh had managed to spread his roots. When he and Zuko sought work in a tea shop the manager had no idea he was dealing with the tea shop's true owner. And yes, Iroh had been deeply disturbed to see how this particular investment had lost sight of his vision, to provide a needed service to the populace…

But he didn't blame Zuko for leaving. It was all too much for a young man still so wholly garbed in the world view of his father, and his grandfather. Iroh castigated himself yet again for not finally pulling the veils from his nephew's eyes. Had he been more forceful earlier would Zuko had borne so much pain? Was he even still alive to beg the question?

--------------------------

Sokka had fallen silent.

The tale he had told had been from an observer's perspective; as if he were not a participant at all. It was this fallback on the storyteller's wiles that convinced Zuko that this story of love found and love lost was, in fact, no fable at all.

Zuko knew there would be no further words from the Water Tribe boy, no matter how he tried to provoke him. For once, he was of no mind to provoke the younger boy.

It had been the stuff of which legends are made. A beautiful girl, promised to another, who finds her heart's beloved only to forsake him, and everything else, giving up her life to bring light to the world in an unnatural dark of night.

Legends don't talk about those left behind.

He wouldn't have admitted it, but Zuko was a sucker for a legend. And he'd read enough to recognize one in the making. From the corner of his eye he looked again upon the brooding figure across the glowing embers of the fire as it spent itself, the one who had unaccountably saved him from his own depression. He suspected that Sokka did not see himself as a figure in this legend at all, and that if he did, it was not a role he relished.

The prince of fire allowed a month's worth of experience of a common peasant of water to contrast against his assessment of his own worth to offer to a princess of the world they shared.

Unlike his earlier assessments against the different elements of Sokka's being, Zuko recognized that no attempt at crushing Sokka's worth beneath the might of the Fire Nation heel would ever diminish the totality that the peasant had to offer.

It did not occur to Zuko that he bore romantic trappings of his own, that he held the makings of legend within himself.

That his imminently worthy uncle should be denied honor was, in itself, evidence of the lack of justice in the world. That his uncle merely bowed his acceptance of the world's judgment seemed, suddenly, wholly improper and irrational.

That his father had found honor and greatness had always been a comfort, until he thought about its costs.

It was only thinking about those costs, suddenly, in the context of the Water Tribe boy's losses, mother, lover, and finally legendary hope, that finally raised the specter of justice of the Fire Lord's rule in his son's eyes.

A vision of his Uncle Iroh returning to court bereft of his son's presence and expectations suddenly presented itself to Zuko, an image that he had not realized had even imprinted itself upon his brain.

It was, finally, enough.

The cynical said Prince Zuko was looking for a reason to justify turning against the Fire Lord, his father.

The pragmatic only wondered that it took so long.

---------------------------------------

"So. You didn't find him." Katara winced at the unexpected reproach in Aang's pronouncement.

"The storm--, so many ships--," Katara burst into tears as she internalized the hopes that had unconsciously centered upon this latest search for her missing brother.

"Oh shut-up. Aang. Just cause we didn't find him doesn't mean Sokka's not fine."

It took a moment for him to isolate what it was that gave weight to Toph's statement over Katara's distress. Was it that she referred to him by name, to Sokka without a prejorative nickname? Maybe it was simply the hope she offered in the face of their failed venture, a hope at odds from Toph's usually dour outlook. Or did it mark some infinitesimal shift in his allegiance between these two anchors to his world? Aang shook off the thought even as it rose unbidden in his mind.

"The world is large. It is easy for a young man to lose himself within."

Even as the three youngsters recognized the truth of Iroh's words, they noticed a certain lack of definiteness in his diction that they had learned to associate with the old man's tendency to drift into a broader world of speculation and philosophy. In the current context it didn't make sense, until Katara remembered that Iroh still fretted upon the whereabouts of his nephew, the Fire Nation Royal who had made their life hell in the months of their sojourn before Toph joined their ranks.

"He's talking about Zuko again," She hissed to the other two, suddenly mindful of the absurdly early hour and hopes that had never left their elder companion.

Her younger companions took her words at face value, assessing them in the context of their existing world view, and dismissed Prince Zuko from their consideration as they faced the burgeoning morning. But Katara was Water Tribe, and she had welcomed the aged fire-bender into her family. Thus the old man's concerns regarding his missing nephew had become her own.

Her heart clamored for her missing brother. Now an echoing clamor pulled at her heart for the young fire-bender, a soul with whom she had previously shared nothing but enmity.

The Water Tribe's reach for family was broad. It had encompassed the young air-bender Aang without a qualm, and so Katara had spoken so early on to Aang about his status as family in the Tribe that it had never occurred to Katara to wonder if she had done right.

The Fire Price seemed an entity removed, and yet Katara observed in Aang's Fire Bending Master's eyes that Zuko was simply another child, another member of the family. She shook herself mentally, because she had found herself reaching out automatically to Iroh to embrace him into the Water Tribe, and with him his beloved nephew!

Iroh! Prince and General of the Fire Nation! Zuko, heir to the Fire Nation throne!

With a shaky laugh Katara broke the silence that had settled on the group with the recognition of their return without Sokka. The old man had clearly proven his loyalties to the world in general, and Katara found she was ready to take Iroh's word on the worthiness of his all too dangerous nephew.

"What do you say, Aang? Since there's no word otherwise, it seems to me we have reason to celebrate, even though we haven't found Sokka ourselves!"

"Damned straight!" Toph's words were as firm as her stance.

The young Avatar held his hand to the air, in a gesture universally recognized as a bid for silence or peace. In the safety of this company, he closed his eyes and stretched out his senses in ways he didn't wholly comprehend, almost subconsciously imposing a filter on the flood of information his gesture opened up to his perception.

"Why not? Tomorrow is, after all, another day!"

He couldn't explain it otherwise. He couldn't say that he knew of Sokka's whereabouts, couldn't even say he was sure he had sensed the young man he had learned to think of as a brother; the image had become too confused with the Zuko/Blue Spirit/Kuzon figure in his mind. None of which he could explain, but all of which gave him hope.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Wow. Amazing season finale. Not even gonna attempt a comment, except to say the writing on this program never ceases to delight me.

After the previous chapter's angsting and emotional denouement, we change gears again. I don't know about you all, but I'm itchin' for some action, so it's transition time.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action thereby (Whew!).

Chapter 16

One can become accustomed to almost anything over time, and this is especially true of the young. Of course, familiarity does not equate with acceptance, and whereas Sokka had begun to adjust to his morning starting with Zuko's toe establishing a groove along his backside he was by no means reconciled to its inevitability.

He seriously considered bringing the dull edge of his machete across Zuko's instep as a warning the next time that errant boot found its way too close to his person. Perhaps even the sharp edge, come to think of it.

But there was a vicious element to the gesture this morning that made him simply roll away with a snarl. There had been too few hours of sleep anyway since the two boys' conversation had finally died away in the night, and he could not imagine what demon possessed his companion to wake him before starting their morning fire.

"We're _so fuckin'_ smart! We thought of everything, didn't we? Every possible use for an empty warehouse. Except one! The one we should have thought of first thing – c'mon, idiot, wake up! What comes to mind with a big, solid, empty room with one door? Well? What?"

"I dunno. Hey, wait, I thought about this last night as I was walking back to the tavern - what about cock-fighting? Yeah, that makes sense…"

Sokka's dozing mind made the connection his struggling consciousness still strove to overlook. "Oh fuck. No. What makes you think it's gotta be a…"

"Prison? Only door locked _on the outside_ enough of a clue for you?" Zuko practically spat the words at Sokka, who prudently scrambled from his bedroll away from the prince's trembling boot.

"Just…calm…down…for a moment, okay?" Sokka thought about the many times in the past when he had realized the perilous potential of a given situation while those around him persisted in idyllic oblivion, and sympathized with Zuko's frustration.

He buried his head in his hands, fingers digging into his scalp and further wreaking havoc with the band confining his hair's longer lengths. One element of his brain noted that he still hadn't brought a blade's edge to the sides and back of his skull, which had begun to echo his companion's shaggy shock of hair, aggravated by the length of his wolf's tail. It suddenly occurred to him that he may no longer look so much the boy and more like a man.

And the random coarse hair across his upper lip was also more apparent… the tavern girl had commented upon it. He eyed his companion's face closely, noting a faint shadow along the prince's jawline, the tailtale darkening along his lip, so much more evident against the fair skin. Hmm. Well. He was used to trading upon their status – he, Aang, Katara and Toph – as children. With the older boy, it appeared he was more likely to be taken for an adult. Like at the tavern, drinking beer, and the girl. Well, this may have its own advantages. Meanwhile…

"I won't be caged again! We're getting out now!" The fire that Sokka had hoped to see appearing among the blackened logs on the earthen floor smoldered instead in Zuko's eyes as he nervously paced.

Zuko's face was as adamant as any expression Sokka had seen on Toph's blind visage. It struck a chord of irony in him to recognize the similarity between the progeny of two of the world's great houses. He wished briefly for Katara's presence to share this particular observation as he forced himself to rest negligently back against his kitbag, jumbling his bedroll up to provide a cushion to sit upon.

"Fine. Since they don't know you're a fire-bender, let's keep that under our hats while we consider our options," he stretched out his legs, chancing against the likelihood of Zuko kicking him. "Remember, we can always use your fire-bending to burn a way out along one of the back walls. Right…_right_?" As he leaned back in faux relaxation Sokka carefully eyed Zuko. He was afraid the other boy's fury might vent itself on one of the upright columns supporting the warehouse's roof. That wouldn't be good for either of them, although it might relieve some of Zuko's tension briefly.

"Sure. Right. You're right, of course. The whole building's just wooden construction, solid enough, but not actually that heavily built. They never thought to hold fire-benders in this place, that's obvious," Zuko's agitation eased as he now considered the structure more carefully, choosing the likeliest site for a quick burn-through. Sokka's easy assumption of his ability to blast their way out alleviated that sense of self doubt still crouching in his soul.

He wanted to summon his energy now into a single devastating fireball that he would hurl against the handiest wall. The only thing that stopped him was his companion's obvious lack of urgency. Didn't he understand the situation?

"Well, what are you doing just sitting around then. What do you mean, 'consider our options'? Let's _go_!"

Sokka looked at the spears of sunlight angling through vent holes scattered around the warehouse's walls. It was still early morning. While he was fully cognizant of using whatever advantage you had _before_ your enemy knew you had it, he also favored garnering as much information as possible. He thought carefully. He and Zuko were both competent with weapons. That was already established by their interlude with the sea scavengers. In all likelihood whoever had blocked their exit from the warehouse was also aware of this. Did they know more?

Stay and find out who was interested enough in them to block their passage or use his companion's particular abilities to get as far away as possible. The instinct of self-preservation warred strongly with the itch of curiosity. Curiosity was abetted by the lazy streak in Sokka's personality that objected to the rude awakening. He decided to reserve judgment until he'd had a chance to weigh Zuko's observations. After all, the older boy had that specialized military background that had, time and again, made Sokka look a fool.

_You wanted to learn from him, didn't you? Well, here's your chance!_

Of course, it was obvious at this point Zuko had his mind made up to leave immediately. Still, was there any point running away before they knew for sure from whom they were running? This far south, the odds were pretty good that whoever was holding them prisoner was not connected with the war. So why would anyone care where they went?

For Sokka the gambler, the odds were on their side. He only hoped Zuko had learned enough about trust to follow his lead.

"What's your hurry? Don't you want to know what's going on here?"

"What's going on is obvious. Someone has decided to keep us locked away. Maybe it's that salvage bastard, and even now he's pillaging our boat!"

"Ugh. Good thought. No, wait. I'm pretty sure I saw him passed out among the other drunks on the tavern's porch when I left there last night. He won't be going anywhere anytime soon."

"Then maybe it's his friends. Does it really matter?"

"Maybe not. You tell me. But it's not likely to be Fire Nation, now is it? So who is interested in us? And why? Seems to me we need to find out, or we're likely to be risking ambush any time."

Zuko sighed. "With nearly a year's experience running I'd think you'd know that you're _always_ at risk of being ambushed. We let ourselves be cornered, and that was foolish. We need to get out of here and find terrain where we have the advantage." Here he fixed Sokka's eyes with his own amber gaze. "We don't sit and wait like turtle-ducks."

"Okay, fine. I guess you're right. I'm just curious is all. It seems to me this would be a good time to take advantage of your fire-bending." He obligingly pulled himself to his feet and began stuffing his bag with his bed-roll.

"Huh, Sokka, what do _you _know of fire-bending, anyway?"

"You mean, including fire-bending as personified by you? Shit. I'm thinking I'm something of an expert these days."

"Ass. No, really. What do you know?" Sokka's stubbornness and slowness was starting to annoy him. He thought a bit about how well he knew the workings of their small sailboat. Damn it, he needed the Water Tribe boy if he was going to travel by sea. On the other hand, the wrecker's revelations of the previous night had already led him to consider an alternative path. Perhaps it was time they parted after all.

"Okay, fine. Seems to me that there's a big difference in control when it comes to fire-benders. Yeah, yeah, you're gonna say it's the same with earth-bending and water-bending. But I remember Aang saying something about discipline, and it's clear that without discipline fire-bending can turn on the bender."

"Bah. If this is all you've got to say, I'll just go back to sleep…"

"Fine. Do so. You're the one who woke me up in the first place!"

"Shithead."

"Arrogant fuck."

"Vulgar peasant."

"I'm not the one who started the day with profanity…"

"So. Do you have anything to add, anything _helpful_, that is?"

The simple reality was that Sokka could not resist any real appeal to his intellect. And Zuko had figured this out fairly early on. It was Sokka's turn to sigh. What did he know, anyway?

"Oh, shut it, anyway. We both know that all I know is what I've come up against over the last year. But I may know something…"

Zuko looked at Sokka sideways. Given that the vision on the left side of his face was impaired anyway, nothing more could be expected of him. But he trusted to Sokka to recognize symbolism on its face.

"Fine. Okay, quick and dirty version. You know as well as I that, for example, Zhao's blindside was his arrogance, his belief that he knew everything that needed to be known about fire-bending… no! That he knew everything that needed to be known about _water-bending_, or at least, Water Tribe culture."

What possible use could this drivel about Zhao be? An ugly suspicion began to form as Zuko considered what now appeared to be Sokka actually stalling. Certainly, neither of them shared an interest in the Fire Nation finding them again, but while he couldn't afford to be found by the Earth Kingdom either, Sokka had nothing to fear there. And perhaps, something to gain in betraying Zuko to them. Bile rose in his throat as his mind revolted against the thought. Still, he had only Sokka's word that he had spent that time away from him engaged in exploration of physical pleasure. And he knew the other boy was clever, and as driven by a desire to strike against the Fire Nation as Zuko himself was to go home, honor restored. Sokka could have been finding his way to the nearest Earth Kingdom garrison, perhaps even earning himself a bounty. After all, the door had been locked _after_ the other boy's return to the warehouse.

Zuko stretched his battered ego to consider the situation under this new light as against the grudging trust he had come, despite himself, to reside in the other boy. Yes, Sokka was no stranger to the wiles of manipulation, but he had left himself vulnerable to Zuko on more than one occasion as well. And yes, Sokka had stuck by him on the battlefield, even knowing his own people were mere strides away. When confronted by this memory Zuko had nothing to rebut what his heart told him was truth. And a certain tension left him, to be filled again by the previous night's easy comraderie. And relief.

"So? That tells me nothing I didn't already know."

"Why does a fire-bender ask a Water Tribesman about fire-bending anyway? Did you really expect that I would know anything you don't already?"

"Of course not," Zuko snorted. "I ask only because we need to know how much _they_ are likely to know, so we can adjust our plans accordingly."

"Right. That makes sense. Glad you haven't gone goofy on me. Well, then, maybe my point doesn't really matter. It was just that Zhao _did_ know more than we could have expected, and was willing to act on it regardless of the consequences. Frankly, if it hadn't been for Aang and the Ocean Spirit, we'd have been totally screwed," Sokka punctuated the statement with a surprisingly accurate cast of his boomerang just shy of Zuko's hip-bone; the weapon snaked around the fire-bender and returned to its master's hand. This time Zuko's snort included a blast of steam. He glared at Sokka, who didn't see the edge of fear in his eyes as Zuko wondered if he'd guessed wrong after all.

Sokka smiled disarmingly, but his eyes were hooded. If he hadn't winked and suddenly whooped in laughter, Zuko would have wondered if he hadn't in fact gone somewhat mad. It occurred to him that this would be a question he would be asking himself for some time to come. "Actually, Zuko, my point is that it wasn't Zhao's fire-bending or his army that nearly did us in. It was his _knowledge_. Combine that with surprise, and you're one up on your opponent every time."

"Do that again and you'll find youself in search of a haircut to get rid of singed ends," Zuko warned. "Oh yeah, and I'm not talking about the hair on your head!"

Sokka's eyes widened. He couldn't resist a grin at the image the threat invoked. Zuko was getting quite colorful as time went on. "Tch, your highness, is that any way for a prince to talk?"

Zuko grinned back, "Did you forget I spent nearly three years on a navy ship surrounded by sailors? Impossible to keep my ears unsullied, especially when I was training with them. Fire-bending feeds on emotion, no matter what anyone tells you! Remember that, Sokka, and do your best to stay on my good side!"

"Like I'll every try to find my way there in the first place." Sokka scoffed as he continued to pack. Zuko had convinced him. It was time to leave.

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It had been a brave statement, of course, that about tomorrow being a new day, bumpity-bump. Something like that.

The truth was they had the rest of the day to get through, and planning for the next leg of finding Sokka. Of course, the next thing to deal with was lunch. After which Aang demonstrated his fire-bending prowess with a super-heated blast that cleared the stone table, followed by a cold wind that left them all aghast, shivering even as they counted their fingers to make sure none had been lost in the bending display.

Katara rounded first on Iroh for unleashing such power in Aang before he could control it, biting off Aang's protests with her own freezing blast that left his tongue frigid and raw in jaws slightly agape and lips chapped.

Toph interjected at that point with a sudden upthrust of stone beneath Katara's feet that left her sitting on her behind, reminded forcibly that she was not the only bending master in what had suddenly become a far-too-enclosed space. She howled, at first in anger and outrage, and then with giggles as Aang and Toph each leaped upon her, fingers tickling, in a writhing mass that mere seconds later separated with some confusion and embarrassment. In a sudden fit of exuberance Aang brought his still colder-than-normal lips against first Katara's cheek and then Toph's.

"That'd teasch you'th," "Hey, I didn't do it!" "Brr, no fair!" With which they all laughed madly. Aang's cheeks flamed but his eyes burned triumphant.

Iroh himself grinned wryly, reminded of his son's antics when he was far younger than these three, and wondered again at the ease with which these children complained to each other of perceived faults, comfortable in the underlying affection between them.

And somehow, instead of feeling older the fire-bender found himself gently absorbing their energy. His own childhood had never been like this; no matter how much he had wanted to embrace his so much younger brother Ozai's presence had been brooding and sullen. He closed his eyes against lost opportunities, and firmly faced his present.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Did I promise action? I did. Hope you enjoy it. Still planning to finish this over the next three weeks…

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action thereby (Whew!).

Chapter 17

Tension having been eased by their antics, Katara was the first to regain her composure. It was the missing element that gave her pause.

"Aang, do you think you could try reaching out for Sokka again? The storm we had to weather made me nervous. You remember how he got caught out last fall…"

Aang nodded, his own face suddenly serious, and led the way back outdoors.

Iroh found himself again on the sidelines as the two girls flanked the young Avatar. He stroked his beard thoughtfully, considering how these remarkable children drew strength from each other, not from the single adult in their midst. It was, he suspected, the natural order of things. The cycle of rebirth, of each new generation succeeding the last. It would be nice to think the young could build upon the achievements of the old, but it seemed that often enough they were left merely having to deal the problems left behind by their elders. Was it really any wonder that they looked to each other?

A spark of guilt attempted to catch at the coals of Iroh's history as a military leader, but that fuel had been consumed long ago in the bonfires of grief, the ashes scattered by his attempts to do better by the young boy he had seen as his second chance, and now this penance in the service of elemental balance. Guilt sufficed to make him hesitant to offer advice or insight, but it was still difficult to feel the weight of accumulated experience and not be able to share its gleanings.

This time Aang reached out to take Katara's hand before reaching down into the earth with his other hand. This time there was no tremor in his muscles, no faltering of stance or demeanor. Toph thought she caught a slight quickening in his heartbeat, even as his breathing slowed, but she did not try to reach out any further with her own senses.

Aang's grip on Katara's hand tightened, and her own vision blurred as she felt Aang expand his connection to her, impinging on her sense of autonomy. The sensation was brief, and vaguely disorienting, but she kept her own hold firm.

The boy finally looked up at his companions, eyes open again and fully focused, "It's kinda odd. I mean, I think he's alright, and he's definitely not shipboard anymore. There are other people there, and there's a lot of… excitement? Yeah, that's the best word. But it's not about Sokka. It's not good, exactly, but I don't think it's bad either. He seems – I don't know, almost amused?"

"Wow. Snoozles amused. I can't imagine it." Toph couldn't resist it, although she had to admit to herself that it unnerved her to have Aang suddenly evoke such a definite image. It was at times like this, when Aang evidenced those strange abilities that marked him as so much more than just another boy, that Toph found herself least comfortable in her role as his teacher. And most thankful that she had taken the opportunity to seize that role.

"Aang, that was amazing! I think I felt it, too!" Katara could hardly contain herself. "And he_ is_ okay. Hey, did you feel something, maybe, familiar?"

"Besides Sokka? Yeah, but it was very confusing. I don't know how to explain it, except that if felt like circles spiraling in upon themselves. Scary, but somehow like it was right, and important." Aang replied. "I think I know where he is. As long as he doesn't hit the water again, it should be easy enough to pick him up!"

Katara simply squealed.

"Well. What are we waiting for – the next solar eclipse?" Actually, she would have liked to spend a night in a soft bed, but the fever of having their little group complete again did not exempt Toph from its heat, for all her attempts to maintain aloofness.

"Can Appa make another long flight again today?" Iroh asked thoughtfully. His own encounters with the Water Tribe boy had been so few he was not swayed by the other's excitement. And he was, of course, the practical voice of reason (sometimes he wondered how they had survived before his appearance, and found himself looking again to the assurances of the spirit world).

"So let's just ask him, but I think Appa can do anything!" And the Avatar sailed exuberantly into the air.

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Sokka was not particularly introspective, saving his analytical observations for the rest of the world, but as he shielded his eyes from Zuko's focused gouts of flame against various points along the wall it did occur to him to wonder when he had learned to consider fire-bending as no more than a practical tool to serve his own ends.

So much had happened in the last year. He still wasn't wholly comfortable with the thought of people being able to command the elements directly - any element, not just fire (for what was beyond explanation was necessarily beyond _complete_ comfort). But he no longer feared it. And as he acknowledged this truth, he also realized that his fear had had its origins in his memory of his mother's death through fire-bending. This insight gave him pause, and he turned his gaze from the wall to his companion.

When did he stop fearing Zuko? Oh yes, for all his bravado and insults Sokka had feared the other boy, and wished heartily for his death on more than one occasion.

He told himself that his decision to actively engage the Fire Prince back in the prison had been one of pragmatism and a weighing of lesser evils. He knew it didn't explain his coming to Zuko's aid after their escape, or his continued association with him, but the former he excused as a debt owed for Zuko's part in that escape, and a tangled accounting for favors exchanged since. The latter was admittedly a preference for not being alone; on the ice solitude was the precursor of death and such habits are hard to shed, especially when they are half subconscious.

But the additional reality was that he enjoyed Zuko's company, he enjoyed the challenge of it even as he missed the easier gamboling with Aang, Katara and Toph. Imagine that. Sokka enjoying time spent with a fire-bender. He gave himself a good mental shake as Zuko now aimed several well-placed kicks at the blackened planking. Forget this nonsense about making sure Zuko didn't cause trouble for Aang; it was time he left the fire-bender behind him, else he might start feeling some warped sense of sympathy for the Fire Nation's aims next!

The opening was more than wide enough for one to pass through, although it would have been a bit of squeeze for them both. Zuko held up his hand in signal for Sokka to wait as he cautiously stepped through himself, checking both ways for signs of movement.

"Huh, nice neat job, Zuko. You should send them a bill for providing them with a secondary doorway." Sokka quipped as he stepped through.

"Quiet, Idiot."

"Like no one would have heard the wood burning, or your kicking it out?" Sokka had his kitbag strung across his back, keeping both arms free for war club and boomerang. He was pleased to see that Zuko had drawn his dual swords as well. No point walking out unprepared, and there was still a chance they could keep his fire-bender status quiet.

"Like you said, they shouldn't be expecting us to try an escape like this."

The warehouse backed up on an alleyway, narrower than the quay fronting the building but similar in length. The question was, which way to go? To the right should bring them, sooner or later, to the end of the row of buildings starting with the pier's end. To the left the alley way appeared to snake on roughly in the direction of the tavern. Each boy tried to remember how often there had been cross streets.

Any decision was rendered moot by the sudden dropping on all sides of nearly a dozen heavily armed men.

Zuko clutched one wrist with the other, particularly jarred by a blow from a staff to his previously injured shoulder even as another rapped the back of his hand. Forced to drop both swords, his first inclination was to retaliate in flames. But in his peripheral vision he saw a spear pink Sokka just below his jaw, and he hesitated just long enough to find its twin much too close to his own throat.

"Don't move." Neither boy noticed who spoke, but both heeded the words.

"Well, that certainly went well," Sokka muttered.

"How many times do I have to say it? Shut up!"

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"You are the world's biggest ass," Zuko offered in an aside as the two boys were shepherded along the alleyway further inland.

"I don't see how that's a fair comment," Sokka returned. "How could they have known we would escape through a door that didn't exist ten minutes previously? How is that my fault?"

"If you hadn't slept so late, or hadn't needed to spend so much time, um, 'considering our options', we might have made it."

"Or, if we'd waited to see what it was all about, we wouldn't have pissed them off and we'd still have our weapons and our hands free," Sokka kept his own tone conversational. He'd spent a lot of time over the last year playing about with ropes and knots, and thought he had a better than even chance of working his way through the fairly hurried knots currently binding his wrists behind his back.

"Do not - if you want to live when we get out of this - even _attempt_ to suggest that this is somehow my fault." Zuko was also thinking about his bindings. Theoretically, he should be able to burn through them without scorching his own wrists so badly he would be incapacitated. Theoretically. It wasn't something he'd actually ever tried. Well, Uncle had often talked to him about the utility of testing theories. _Sorry, Uncle. Sometimes we can't control our test conditions._

"I like that. I mean, the 'when' word. It shows confidence. Confidence is a _good_ thing. Except when it's misplaced," Maybe someday, Sokka thought to himself, he wouldn't enjoy taking digs at Zuko. But hell, why worry about someday now? _Yep, this definitely feels a little bit looser._

There was something a bit familiar about this procession to him, and he set one part of his brain searching his memory for just what it was that struck a chord. He relied on his muscle memory to do its job. And the rest of his brain was struggling again with the _who_ and _why_ of this latest escapade. The first thing he noticed was the lack of uniformity in their assailants' appearance. But there was something…

"I'll say it again, you're an ass." There was no heat in Zuko's voice, and by Sokka's earlier comments he didn't worry at the other boy's taking any particular offence. He'd noted Sokka's emphasis on the word _when_ rather than the word _we_. He had no doubt it was deliberate.

They were scattering camouflage with their dialogue, much as they had done in prison. Almost unconsciously they had fallen into a now familiar pattern, apparently distancing each from the other to lull their enemies into a false sense of their isolation. Oddly enough, the closer each got to scoring a particularly telling comment on the other, the more they each appreciated each other.

Nothing really odd about it, actually. They were merely understanding each other more and more, and that simple act breeds community, _fraternity_. A concept neither was yet prepared to wholly admit.

Sokka was concentrating on how this particular _capture, apprehension, forced confrontation_ was all taking place in daylight hours. He wondered, if they had not forced the issue by attempting to escape by the alley, would whatever meeting they were being led to have occurred in the open of the township's high street or in the shadows of the warehouse itself?

And other thoughts intruded as well. He remembered the tavern girl, her hungry kisses and intoxicating caresses, and now he questioned their sincerity. Without being wholly conscious of it, Sokka took another step away from the simple trust of childhood – something he would have sworn he had left behind years ago – towards the more complexly shaded world of being an adult. At the same time, it did occur to him to wonder if he had fully appreciated the symbolism of his tribal heritage's traditional ice-dodging ritual.

As they trailed deeper into the adjoining fields and woods, it became apparent that this was not a matter for the town's concern after all. And yet, there had to be some connection. Sokka tried to impose his surface calm on his seething mind. No doubt the answers would soon make themselves known, and if this walk lasted long enough he would have a surprise of his own to maybe even out the field against them. And perhaps, just perhaps, Zuko was using this time to do more than devise colorful insults and threats.

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The proprietors of a highly exclusive resort deep in the southern Earth Kingdom considered the favors of fortune.

Despite the advantages of a remarkably clear-running hot spring (almost wholly free of the rotten-egg smell of various mineralizations) and a broad riverway with few rapids or other navigational hazards providing a reasonable dropping off point, the Ataran Springs had suffered over the last number of years in terms of commerce. That is, until an unnamed benefactor had seen fit to pour significant sums into maintaining the resort's claims to remoteness and careful security.

Said proprietors were suitably thankful. It was, of course, inappropriate to question the source of any particular largesse, beyond the returns expected. That they should be remarkably reasonable – well within Earth Kingdom norms by a few hundredths of percentage points – and almost wholly without restriction (just a modest report on the identities of those who booked reservations at any given time), had left the proprietors without any particular fears when an odd organization had approached them about a certain potential guest list…


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Now for yet more transition.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action thereby.

Chapter 18

When the air even a few thousand feet up still kissed bare skin with the sun's warmth, when random currents brought the scent of jasmine one minute and the sea the next, and when the land fell away beneath him in a benign kaleidoscope of shifting color and pattern, Aang remembered why he loved to fly. He remembered the love that had driven him to embrace his air-bending lessons with a fervor that had earned him his master's tattoos when his peers were still struggling to command their gliders. Of course, he had known innately that the answer lay not in command at all, but in surrender. So Aang reached heights where others merely aspired, and his laughter still echoed, a century later, among peaks hitherto recognized only by birds and the sky bison.

There were times he still felt like that, although the burden of carrying the other bending arts in his blood and bone tended to weigh him down. This was one of those times.

The storm had cleared the air, and Appa's gruff rumbling as he tasted its freshness boded well for this venture. Katara found her place at the front of the saddle as Toph settled in to one side.

Iroh had yet to take his first flight, and he experienced some trepidation as he considered his own girth and the suddenly very shallow-appearing side walls of the saddle. Catching his expression, Katara laughed and extended her hand to him. For all his apparent heft, Iroh was still quite nimble, and he had no difficulty making his way up Appa's broad back along his tail. Still, it was a comfort to have this pretty child offer to share her confidence with him.

She supposed it was some kind of love that kept her in the air, much as being there filled her with terror. In the air or in the water, she was truly blind, and it struck her as ironic that her heart tended to tug her in those two directions instead of remaining safely grounded in the earth. Toph understood strength; she was all about strength. She also told herself that no one knew better than her about dealing with weakness. Where you couldn't avoid it, you used your strength to compensate. You never exposed yourself. But Aang and his friends exposed themselves all the time. They fought for each other and forgot themselves. Most of all, they reached out to each other. It was a terrible weakness to admit how much you relied on someone else. Toph hadn't allowed herself to rely on anyone in years.

She remembered Iroh's advice that day she met him in the wilderness not long after agreeing to teach Aang to earthbend. She knew now it was fear that had driven her away from Aang and the Water Tribe siblings that day, fear of being dependent and of being depended upon. So thereafter, time and again she exposed herself to being blind and relying on her friends. It was love. It must be.

--------------------------------

"Hey, Zuko," Sokka called quietly to get the other boy's attention. "Does it strike that these guys seem very, I don't know, similar somehow?"

"You mean how regimented their movements are," his companion nodded.

"Yeah, that's the word I was looking for. So. Do you think then they're.."

"Soldiers?" Zuko kept his own voice low. "Probably. But no uniforms. I suppose they could be some clandestine group some general created to infiltrate the enemy, but I've never heard of such a thing."

"If they were any good at it, you wouldn't hear about it, would you? That's the point."

"Wiseguy. No, think about it, Sokka. What use would such a group be out here? Remember the map? The front line's too far north, and there's no viable target for a military group to take out here. Anyway, in a war of conquest, you want the people to know whose army is occupying them. And in a battle you want to know who your allies are and who your enemies are. Uniforms are important."

"Fine, no argument. But these guys _are _soldiers. Whose? And what do they want with us?" Sokka glanced around.

The trail was broad enough for Zuko and him to walk abreast. Ahead and behind their captors moved also in pairs, silently changing positions as from time to time one pair would peel off to scout ahead or to the side. Occasionally one of them would receive a nudge from a spear should they appear to stray too close to one side or the other of the path or walk too slowly. Otherwise, no words had been spoken since they were caught in the alley.

It was creepy.

"You notice they're not in any hurry to tell us, either," Zuko replied, although he had formed one or two suspicions of his own. "You got any guesses?"

"Maybe. Although I gotta say I kinda like your idea about secret saboteurs," Sokka mused, his imagination caught by the possibilities.

"Idiot. Were you too busy ogling Whatzername or can't you handle your beer? Don't you remember what the wrecker told us?"

"About the gathering of Fire Nation soldiers to that officer who dropped out of the war?" Sokka shrugged. "Sure, why do you think I asked you in the first place. Do these guys look like Fire Nation to you?"

Zuko grimaced in embarrassment. Take a man out of uniform and change his hairstyle, and he could as easily be Earth Kingdom as Fire Nation. Zuko's own ivory skin had darkened under the last week's spring sun, grime, and salt spray, and the gold of his eyes was only apparent on close inspection. Even his black hair was dull with accumulated dirt and salt, and it would take sharp eyes indeed to recognize a Fire Nation Royal in his battered appearance.

The simple reality was that there was nothing particularly distinctive about most people's physical appearance. Even the Water Tribes' deeper skin tones could be found beyond the Poles, although the startling blue eyes remained unique to their people. Perhaps certain characteristics in facial shape tended more towards one nation or another, but what Zuko had said about interbreeding was more true than he knew.

"I don't know. It's been too long since I've been home…" Sokka heard that bitter element back in Zuko's voice, and it occurred to him to briefly wonder if Zuko's "home" even still existed as he remembered it, or even if it ever had.

"Well, okay, it may not matter," he said, as much to distract Zuko as anything else. "If they're all deserters we probably have nothing to worry about. It's not like we're spies or anything interested in them."

"Speak for yourself," Zuko returned with a sigh. "I had been thinking maybe this officer could be Uncle Iroh. He was a Fire Nation hero, you know. I think men would flock to him."

"Nuts. You said he was pretending to be just another refugee, hiding out as a tea-maker somewhere."

"He was. I know, it doesn't make sense. Anyway, these guys are way too organized," Zuko's shoulders slumped. "Even Uncle couldn't put together this kind of operation in the bare couple of months since I last saw him."

"Sorry, man. When you asked about Fire Nation movements and rumors, I thought you were just worried about getting tripped up by your sister," Sokka suddenly stopped as his own words hit him, only to be prodded along again. He was starting to feel a bit like a pin cushion, and decided he was done testing the limits of these soldiers' patience.

"Well?"

"That was it, probably, they _do_ think maybe we're spies cause we were asking about them."

"Probably. The wrecker probably talked too much after he left us, and someone followed you back to the warehouse. It was a risk questioning him, but I admit I wasn't really worried about Fire Nation patrols," Zuko replied absently. He had lost interest in this conversation.

Sokka was indignant. "We're wearing Water Tribe clothes and sailing a Water Tribe boat. Shit! I _am_ Water Tribe! If these guys actually aren't fighting for the Fire Nation anymore, why should they be worried about us?"

Zuko looked over at Sokka in some surprise. "War-time, remember? It's better not to trust anyone." And then he smiled grimly. "Perhaps we commandeered that boat, killed its owners and stole their clothing in order to spy for the Fire Nation. Maybe you're a traitor to your people. It's happened before, you know."

Sokka bristled visibly. He opened his mouth to protest, then shut it. Deliberately he relaxed his suddenly tense muscles, forcing himself to consider the truth of Zuko's words, to picture himself in the perspective of another. It was as likely an explanation as any other, and certainly better than any he had come up with. Ruefully, he realized that Zuko wasn't the only one with a blind side in the form of national pride. He also felt a sudden taste of Zuko's own agony at being thought a traitor.

_It's different though, for him. The people who think he's a traitor are those who should have known better. And I still don't get why standing up for your people should be considered a crime. Isn't that what a leader is supposed to do? The Fire Nation's crazy with its domination delusions, but at least generally they're ideologically consistent. I can see that you'd need absolute obedience to maintain control, _he supposed,_ but then how do you turn an obedient puppy into the dominating dog? It's a wonder Zuko isn't even more messed up than he is._

Sokkafelt like his mind was only half-functioning, and resolved to stop letting himself be distracted by extraneous elements.

"Hey, Zuko. We didn't get breakfast; you think these guys are gonna want to stop and eat anytime soon?"

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The proprietor of the chandlery passed the warehouse on his way to work that morning, and noted with some surprise a bar across the door. With some regret at owing this particular duty to the warehouse's owner, with some effort he lifted the bar aside and pushed the door open. Regret turned to outright chagrin at the sight of the irregular opening, edges blackened and roughly lined with debris, that gaped along the far wall. He sighed.

He had thought the two young men were probably another pair of deserters, looking to lie low for a while. Having lost his own son to the war years ago he'd borne them no ill will, and had even enjoyed the easy dispatch with which they'd driven the salvage hunters from their craft. It had been pretty work indeed, even from his vantage point behind the shop's shutters.

But really, too many men without a purpose had passed through An Dui over the last year, and he wasn't surprised that someone had made a fuss. And it appeared that the young men in question had objected, somewhat forcefully. Ah well, he considered, he'd been doing all right renting the space out without telling the owner for months. He supposed he could cover the repairs easily enough, and maybe he owed as much to those two, caught up in a war not of their making.

He got another surprise as he unlocked the shop; the Water Tribe craft still bobbed peacefully along the pier, its mooring lines apparently untouched. And then, perhaps an hour or so later, the tap girl from the tavern showed up to pay another night's docking fees for that boat.

And he knew better than to ask questions.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Sorry folks, I really hoped I'd finish this before my new semester started, but inspiration did not cooperate. I refuse to make predictions now as to updates. So. I give you a little clarification, a tiny little bit of action, and some introspection. It will have to do for a while…

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action thereby.

Chapter 19

While he admitted other possibilities were certainly out there, Sokka thought he would have been an idiot if he'd been surprised to see the dour form of the white-haired fire-bending master Jeong-Jeong appear in the clearing at the end of their sojourn. After all, how many high-ranking officers of the Fire Nation were_ really_ likely to abandon the Fire Lord's cause?

He supposed, in hindsight, that he could have mentioned as much to Zuko last night, but it really hadn't seemed to be the appropriate time. Then again, it did strike him as strange odds to come across the same deserter twice in a year without actually looking for him.

Jeong-Jeong seemed to find such odds equally strange.

Otherwise, reactions were totally predictable:

"Jeong-Jeong, great. Would you tell these idiots to let us go?"

"You! Traitor! I swear, your head is forfeit by my own mark!"

"A princeling and a fool. Such a common pairing. Yet, perhaps the world ends today after all."

Damn it. Not _totally_ predictable!

"Something tells me he knows who you are," Sokka mentioned _sotto vocco_ as the spearpoint found its way once again to his throat.

"Well, obviously, there's no great guess as to which of us is the fool," Zuko remarked wryly.

"Ah nuts. Anyway, that's just what he said the last time." Still, it _was _more than his ego that was annoyed. "Jeong-Jeong, we're_ not_ enemies!"

"No? First I see you with the Avatar, seeking my favor when he knows nothing. Now you are looking for me again, with the Fire Prince who also knows nothing. So, youngling of the Water Tribes, who do _you_ think you are?"

This time the scarred face looked upon Sokka in a way that he hadn't felt in that first encounter, as if the old man were actually looking at him and attempting to read his soul.

_A little late, grandpa_, he posited grimly to himself,_ but I suppose better late than never._ "Shit. We both know you don't really care who I am. You already know this is Prince Zuko. I may be a damned 'native', but I guess you owe him some show of honor, don't you? Maybe a bow or something?"

Oddly enough, that is exactly what Jeong-Jeong did, albeit not without hesitating first, and no one would claim it was done with more than perfunctory obeisance. Sokka observed Zuko's back straighten almost imperceptibly. _Not like he doesn't always look like he's got a rod up his butt anyway…_

"Your highness," and with a gesture from the old man the spears were again withdrawn. "Does a deserter owe fealty to an exile?"

"You owe fealty to your country, Admiral. What do you mean by abandoning your men and hiding out in the country?" Zuko ignored the personal snub, still consumed by his anger at being confronted by someone who had truly betrayed the Fire Lord.

"I'm not sure why I must explain myself to you. However, while I suppose I did abandon them, I could no longer live with sending my men out to meaningless deaths. Some may merely object to the slaughter of raw recruits," Jeong-Jeong's eyes narrowed. "I find it equally objectionable to waste talented and trained troops merely to satisfy blind ambition and old hatreds."

"Score one for the deserter," Sokka muttered. So Jeong-Jeong was aware of the details behind Zuko's banishment as well. _That probably explains the bow better than Zuko's actual rank, at this point_.

"How can you call it blind ambition? We have a destiny to fulfill!"

"What can you, a mere boy, know of destiny?" There was no mistaking the scorn that dripped off the words.

Sokka heard it before his nose confirmed it, the _whoosh_ of burned hemp as Zuko's ire found release in the burst of heat surrounding his fists and consuming his bindings in a white-hot flash and fall of ash. As he absorbed the prince's actions and his brain worked through the likely consequences his nimble fingers finished easing out the last knot confining his own wrists. After all, Jeong-Jeong was a master fire-bender and there were still those twelve pesky soldiers pointing nasty pointy objects at them in a semi-circle. It didn't take a genius to figure out that if violence erupted in this confrontation the guy most likely to get hurt was the one without weapons: himself. Talk about meaningless wastes!

Daggers of flame shot out from Zuko's clenched fists as he brought his arms forward and dropped into a stance. Sokka's hand shot out to grab one wrist as he stepped in front of Zuko, his other hand on the prince's shoulder. Even as he gripped it, he realized that this was the shoulder that had been impaled by a Water Tribe spear not a week earlier, and he dropped his hand to the prince's chest as Zuko's eyes registered pain among the fury.

"C'mon, man! You don't have to agree, but can you at least _listen_ for once?" Sokka forced himself to hold Zuko's gaze, fear hammering in his chest in an all too familiar cadence.

"Damn you, Sokka, you're gonna get yourself killed doing that," Zuko swore at him, but the heat dissipated as he allowed his fists to relax. Another thought intruded on his anger. "It was Jeong-Jeong you were talking about when you said you'd met fire-benders who didn't support my father, wasn't it?" Zuko pushed Sokka's hands away and stepped back a pace.

"Yeah, sorry. It didn't seem important to elaborate on at the time," Sokka backed off as well, unconsciously rubbing gingerly at the abrasions to his wrist and palm wrappings that had saved his skin as he had twisted and pulled at the knots, both during their walk and particularly in those last frantic seconds.

Neither boy paid heed to those surrounding them, beyond peripherally noticing that the circle did not close nor weapons make contact.

Jeong-Jeong's upraised arm once again folded itself into his opposite sleeve, his eyes observing the exchange between his two prisoners quizzically. While his men had obediently fallen back at his signal, they too closely watched the young men they had been sent to bring to Jeong-Jeong for questioning.

It certainly was not wasted on the old soldier that both had freed themselves of their restraints – no great feat for a fire-bender, of course, but the timing of the release was interesting, as it was indeed for the Tribesman who had inexplicably changed traveling companions since his first meeting with him.

He was surprised to see the boy again. Like anyone else who kept tabs on the status of the 100 Years War, Jeong-Jeong had heard of the capture of and death threat to one of the Avatar Companions. But weeks had passed with no further news. The silence from the Fire Nation could have meant anything, but almost certainly, if the Avatar had failed in freeing his friend the propaganda machine would have used it against him. Therefore, Jeong-Jeong had assumed the boy had escaped.

But that did not explain his presence with the exiled prince. From what Jeong-Jeong knew of the Water Tribes, and he actually knew quite a bit, he could not imagine what would have driven the boy to abandon his apparent guardianship of his sister and the Avatar to accompany Prince Zuko.

Unless, of course, there was some truth to the mad whispers circulating throughout the military that General Iroh and Prince Zuko had in fact severed all ties with the Fire Lord after all. That Iroh's presence with Admiral Zhao's fleet had been the key to its defeat in the North. Such speculations Jeong-Jeong had dismissed as fantastical, and the prince's reactions upon recognizing him seemed to confirm that judgment. And yet, what was the Water Tribesman doing with him, touching and speaking to him familiarly, as if they were equals? Was he some sort of delegate to the exiled Royals on the behalf of the Avatar? Perhaps he wasn't quite the fool he had appeared.

Well, obviously not. Now Jeong-Jeong found himself much more interested in this pair than he had been in the reports of two young toughs in Water Tribe apparel seeking information on Fire Nation movements and the Avatar. Perhaps the spirits still had use for him after all, beyond keeping sad and disillusioned men from wasting themselves upon a populous already worn by their fathers and uncles, and yet more generations before.

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It was the waste that had finally gotten to him, Iroh considered as he observed the quietly changing landscape below them. He was, at first, wholly caught up in the whistling of wind in his ears as the giant sky bison flew, the occasional rocking of the saddle as air currents buffeted them, and the surprising cold of the air so far aloft! He had assumed that as they flew closer to the Sun's warmth-giving light that the air itself would also grow warmer, but such had not been the case. _Of course,_ he thought,_ I should have known better. The higher we climb the mountains, the cooler the air, and snow crowns the highest peaks even at mid-summer. And I have climbed many mountains in my time._

And pillaged many villages and towns in the name of conquest. I have left so many widows and grieving mothers behind me, on both sides, and all for what? The glory of my name? The hungry maw of my father's foundries and my country's barren fields and empty paddocks? The endless procession of shrines to those generations of lost soldiers, spirits clamoring that their efforts be not…wasted? As his own dear son's brief life had been wasted.

Lu Ten had been handsome as his cousins were handsome, patrician as his mother had been imperious, and before his death already taller than his more garrulous and easy-going father. Not that Iroh hadn't been handsome in his youth, but he admitted to himself that his was a self-indulgent nature, with an element of coarseness absent in the rest of his family. It made it easy for him to relate to his subordinates, and all too easy to overlook the faults in others that had led to more deaths than necessary on the battlefield and, ultimately, to the mistake that had cost him his son's life.

So perhaps he had gone too far in allowing his nephew to adopt a more ascetic approach to his exile than he had believed healthy. He had so much to atone for, so many lost opportunities to recast.

Iroh was no fool. He knew as well as anyone that you could not turn back the clock, and that he had made many mistakes in his life. He knew as well that he had undoubtedly made many more in the years since his abrupt and painful epiphany regarding his life's purpose all those years ago before the walls of Ba Sing Se. If he spoke cryptically in his advice to his nephew and these new young ones to come under his tutelage, well, it was largely because he feared for his own failings yet again. All he really knew was that he had spent too much of his life trying to meet expectations he did not understand – or even think about, quite honestly – and that path led only to regrets.

_I cannot live your life for you, Nephew, and forgive me if at times it seems I have tried to do so. And wherever you are, forgive me for this as well. I can have no regrets in doing what I can to help bring our world back into balance._


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

"So, Prince Zuko, do you intend to challenge me, or may I offer you and the... ah, excuse me, your _companion_, some refreshment?" Jeong-Jeong allowed an unusual wry note to color his tone. Truly, the current situation had shocked him beyond his normal black outlook on the world.

"He was gonna say 'fool', I just know it…" Sokka grumbled, although his stomach leapt at the thought of food. The last evening's bowls of stew at the tavern seemed eons ago, and the sun was currently riding high in the sky.

"So, how is it he knows _you_ so well?" Zuko answered in an aside, even as he inclined his head to the old soldier, years of training taking hold as he drew himself into an almost unconsciously regal stance, bestowing gracious recognition upon a vassal. Sokka took note and groaned, not sure he was entirely happy to see yet another remnant of the imperious prince assert itself. Although somehow, the implied insult was reassuring.

The surrounding soldiers appeared to hesitate for a few brief moments. A few looked hard at Zuko, and the prince felt the weight of their measuring gazes even as he appeared to ignore them. It was with obvious reluctance that they all withdrew, but whether it was because they didn't trust the young prince or because they wanted to see more of him, none could judge. In any event, as Jeong-Jeong turned his back to lead them towards a small hut, both boys noticed they were suddenly alone with the older man. Neither felt particularly more comfortable.

"So, I don't suppose Chey is still with you…?" Sokka ventured as he followed Zuko through the low hanging covering the doorway. "I mean, I learned some good stuff from him, and I thought maybe he'd like to hear how I used it… Oh, never mind."

Sokka was fairly sure the old man was barely aware of his presence, but somehow he didn't feel quite free to excuse himself. And of course, he'd been offered food as well, hadn't he?

Not, at that point, did there appear to be much in the way of "refreshments" inside the dim hut. Jeong-Jeong folded himself up on a mat in the corner, low stands of candles at irregular intervals around him that flared as he positioned himself, and then settled as he did. At one side a kettle could be seen steaming over a brazier, a teapot nestled nearby warming in the spillover heat.

Zuko knelt gracefully before the older man, his golden eyes unflinching. Sokka hesitated briefly, then opted to seat himself a bit to the side and behind Zuko. He consciously slouched into a comfortable pose he knew he could abandon immediately for a warrior's stance on his feet. Damn it, he _was_ Water Tribe. He wouldn't give deliberate offence, but nor would he kow-tow to the Fire Nation.

An extraordinarily long silence fell over the hut.

It was first broken by an audible growl from Sokka's stomach. He smiled blandly as the other two glanced at him. Almost immediately afterwards, two men with trays of food appeared, and Sokka allowed himself to be distracted by an assessment of their offerings.

Zuko found himself absorbed in his contemplation of the legend before him. His Uncle Iroh was a national hero, but Zuko had known him all his life, and familiarity with his uncle's easy-going nature and usually mild manner made it easy to forget he was the fabled general who had carved a swath through the Earth Kingdom and even breached the outer wall of Ba Sing Se. Jeong-Jeong, on the other hand, was one of the figures of military history who had loomed large in Zuko's studies, not least because of his exploits in decades passed but because they encompassed much in more current history. As General Iroh was the Dragon of the West, Admiral Jeong-Jeong had made a name for himself as the Serpent of the Southern Deep.

It occurred to Zuko that Sokka probably was unaware of Jeong-Jeong's history as the Admiral who had brought the Southern Water Tribe to its knees. He decided, given the boy's apparent lack of overt animosity there, that _he _wouldn't be the one to educate him.

As Zuko observed the old soldier he noted the deep scars marring his visage, and harkened back to the pain he had himself felt, both during his Agni Kai with his father and, later, in his battle with Sokka's water-bending sister. The blades of water and ice could be as devastating as those of flame. As he was marked by his own father's violence he wondered at the more precise markings left by some anonymous water-bender upon the fire admiral. _When_, he wondered,_ did he first start to question the reason for bearing the pain?_

* * *

"Perhaps," Iroh ventured, "I might see the map? Remember, young ones, that I've traveled much of this world before you. Even if I can offer nothing in aid, it would be of interest to me to note any changes since the last time I passed this way…"

"Of course, Sufi Iroh, how silly of us not to think of that ourselves," Aang replied, tossing the map into Iroh's hands with an idle flourish.

Although used to Aang's air-bending herself, Katara kept her eyes on the map in case the apparently lazy adult missed the gesture. Iroh's easy grasp of the scroll was reassuring, and served to remind Katara that Iroh's indulgent demeanor was, in fact, somewhat deceptive.

"An yes. An Dui. I think I remember… A nice little harbor, close-mouthed populous, rather opportunistic as I recall. Totally typical, actually. But perhaps so many years of war would taint the idealism of anyone, don't you think?"

Katara had begun to suspect that the old man dropped such comments quite deliberately. It was, she thought, not just a warning to be prepared but also a broader cautionary tale for Aang and the rest of them.

"Port Saki well to the north is his likely starting point, logically; it's the closest port village to the prison, but Aang says he feels Sokka is somewhere near An Dui," Katara actually said. "Anyway, he's had more than enough time to make it that far south, if he were lucky."

"Yeah. And 'luck' is Snoozles' middle name," Toph said gloomily. There came a point wherein no amount of thinking about love could overcome the helplessness she felt clinging to Appa's fur or even ensconced in his saddle. The reality was, it was only with a firm grip on Aang or Sokka that Toph was really comfortable flying, and even then it was only by benefit of focused concentration from her bending exercises. That, and grumpy jokes at others' expense.

"Don't, please, remind me! Besides, Aang said he felt him alive and _well_ near An Dui!"

"I did, Katara, seriously," Aang said cheerfully. "Remember, you felt it too! Sokka's alright! And no matter what he's said in the past, I _do_ know how to read a map!"

"Right."

It was Iroh's turn to look dubious. It had never occurred to him that the air-bender might have relied on someone else for direction, least of all a non-bending peasant boy. Still, there was no doubt that the others in this group felt some as yet unexplained sense of reliance on the Water Tribe boy. Truthfully, it had become clear to him that the Avatar's exploits had passed well beyond the realm of luck some time ago, and much as he appreciated the talents of these young ones gathered together he couldn't help but sense that _something_ was missing. They all seemed to be at least as aware of this as he, and to to agree and _believe _that the missing element was their friend.

Bizarre as such a conclusion could be among such a group of master benders, Iroh knew better than to disagree out of hand.

* * *

When the food had arrived Jeong-Jeong had poured hot water into the tea-pot, and Sokka had had the sense to recognize some more formal eating ritual than any he had ever been involved in before was taking place before him. Jeong-Jeong and Zuko spoke to one another in a language and words he recognized, but whose meaning seemed to escape him.

Keeping his head, he watched Zuko and carefully imitated the other boy, keeping his own silence. Well, except that for every delicate bite Zuko took, Sokka managed a surreptitious second bite. And for every gracious word Zuko spoke Sokka merely gave a nod. He was pretty sure he couldn't quite manage 'gracious', and he'd be foolhardy to even try.

Sokka remembered those columns he had created in his mind about Zuko's various traits, aligned at that time under "good", "bad", and "could go either way" (as in may be useful someday). He remembered how heavily weighted the "may be" column had been, and thought suddenly how he had assessed Zuko much as one might judge a _tool_ to be used, not a person. He was, briefly, ashamed, even as he moved Zuko's court education over into the "good" grouping. Odd how that balance had unconsciously been shifting over time.

"Your Highness," Jeong-Jeong spoke clearly, "My Lord. You are, of course, aware that there are now even more bounties on _your_ head than there are on mine."

_Well, nothing like clearing the air,_ thought Sokka. He remembered that the old man never seemed to be one to waste his words or pull punches.

"As you said yourself, Admiral," Zuko answered evenly. "You owe _me_ no fealty. Why bother with honorifics in addressing me?"

"My family is old in your family's service," Jeong-Jeong responded. "More importantly, you've given me _no_ reason to suggest you don't... deserve honor."

Sokka suspected, from the careful pauses, that Jeong-Jeong had chosen his words quite carefully. He held his own breath for Zuko's answer and heard a careful intake of breath in the other boy.

"No? I seek my destiny, Admiral, and yet you suggest to me it is something I cannot comprehend…"

_Oh hell, not _that_ again. At least Aang _is_ the Avatar, and his destiny is to work towards the world's balance. What the hell can Zuko's destiny be anyway, except to be a brute and a sociopathic conqueror?_

"You are but a fish in the river…"

"Sorry, Jeong-Jeong, from what I heard, it's a good speech. But it kinda misses the point, ya know what I mean?" Sokka could have bit his tongue, but it was too late. Shit, _why_ was it he had to remember that particular reminiscence of Aang's? And here he'd been _such_ a good boy, quietly eating his weight in rice balls and really good dumplings as the two earlier servers seemed to appear magically every time a tray was emptied.

The fury behind the old fire-bender's eyes was truly frightening, and Sokka frantically attempted to surreptitiously search his empty pockets in the hope of finding a smoke grenade he could disappear behind that had been missed in the early-morning search that had deprived him of his bone knife and more apparent weapons.

Even Zuko's face assumed a paler shade.

"…misses the point? The _point_, you_ insolent_ fool, is that you and your whole _generation_ cannot possibly see all the strands that destiny weaves betweens the world we know and the worlds we don't. Who are _we_ to presume to judge the actions of greater spirits than _ours,_ or to gauge the lots of nations against each other…"

"FUCK that! Sorry, old man, I guess that was pretty coarse, but hey, I'm just a friggin' Tribesman. Look, I don't give _squat _about destiny. What I _know_ is that the Water Tribes got _no_ call to bow to the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, or _anyone_ else! We're free to make our _own_ choices. And what goes for us, goes for _everyone else,"_ Sokka kept his voice calm, although he could feel his own temper starting to rise with every word he spoke. "The _point_ is that I don't see the Fire Nation offering _anyone_ – even its own – a _good reason to live_. And I mean _live_, not just exist! So why shouldn't _everyone,_ every man, woman and child, fight back against the Fire Lord? Okay, maybe a lot haven't fought back before, because they were afraid. Well, they _don't have_ to be anymore. The Avatar is _back_ and we can _all _fight back! And that's just what we're all here to do. Oh, and damn it, you don't have to be a _bender_ to fight – I know that from the heart! You just have to believe!"

Zuko turned to face Sokka in shock and surprise; Jeong-Jeong's own gaze was full of quiet appraisal. Sokka himself seemed a bit surprised at his outburst. He glanced down quickly at the empty tray, hoping desperately for some mouthful to shut himself up from saying more. But even as his eyes surveyed the empty tray he found his own jaw setting in a firm line. The reality was, he had _no_ regrets for his words.

The various candle-flames scattered around the hut flared in a wild and uncoordinated waste of wick and fuel, although Sokka assumed that the actual fuel was the barely contained emotions of the two fire-benders with whom he shared the hut. The light briefly rivaled the noonday sun easing down upon the encampment, and those who had served with fire-benders before glanced askance upon the brightness emanating from hut itself, but none dared to challenge its depths.

"The Avatar? That idiotic child? Ah, now you are talking like a fool!" Zuko could not help himself from voicing his opinion.

"What do you _expect,_ smart ass? Can you prove _you_ got something better on offer?"

"Like _you_ backwards morons would even listen."

"Yeah, we're morons, so why bother to even try to talk. No, just _attack_! Fuckin' idgits!" It didn't take a genius to realize how little heat actually filled this exchange.

"You…would be willing…to_ talk_ to…one another." Jeong-Jeong was thoroughly distracted from his own rant by the sight of the two boys squabbling before him, passions obviously raised and yet no sense of actual violence between them, despite the harsh words.

"Talk to _him_? The guy can't think his way out of a paper bag. It is _so_ pathetic how we would take advantage of him."

"His _arrogance_! He wouldn't see a scam if it bit him in the blubber – and oh, it _would _bite him, hard! I _laugh_ to picture the monuments to his future foolish decisions."

"Bring it, Shit-head! I'll teach you all about the zero-sum game!"

"Zero-sum – Hah! I had to explain 'variable' to you, ass-hole. You wanna know zero-sum…!"

* * *

Perhaps an hour later the two boys met again, this time the lines between them were yet more clearly demarcated, at least visually. Zuko no longer appeared in Water Tribe garb, or even Earth Kingdom clothes.

From somewhere, Jeong-Jeong had procured rich red and black silks, the loose over-tunic and ballooned trousers of the Fire Nation. Zuko's scuffed and worn shoes had been replaced with heavy, turned-toe boots. Sokka observed the apparent ease with which Zuko had made the transition from fugitive to prince again, at least in appearance. Given the squalor and abuse he had suffered under during their incarceration, and the opulence he imagined Zuko had experienced for most of his life, he supposed he could hardly begrudge Zuko's swift abandonment of the trappings that would remind him of his most recent months. He decided not to comment.

"Well, that was interesting."

"Tell me about it." Zuko led the way to some large rocks lining the stream that flowed through the encampment, seating himself with no regard for his raiment.

"You do realize he's kind of crazy, don't you?" Sokka bent to grab a handful of smaller stones near the water's edge, idly tossing one after the other and watching fish dart away in surprise.

"Yeah. Definitely shy a full load," Zuko's eyes followed the single fish as it traced a diagonal against the stream's course. "Still, some of what he says makes a lot of sense, you know? You're lucky, I think, to be so sure of everything, Sokka."

It was a first, and Sokka's arm registered the momentousness of the statement by plowing the stone in his hand directly into a half submerged rock, rather his planned attempt to make it skim the surface of an idling pool on the far side. Zuko had never actually verbally acknowledged the other boy's ascendancy over him in _any_ way, and it struck Sokka as starkly ironic that he should choose the point on which he himself felt the _least_ security.

"That's me," he said, half spitting out the words, "They don't call me the idea guy for nothin'."

"_Idea_ guy?" Zuko looked at him in earnest, his earlier comment more than half the product of his own contemplations and an ease with Sokka bred of too many days and nights in the other boy's company. "You _can't _be serious. They couldn't come up with _something _better than that?"

"Okay, so we are linguistically challenged," Sokka answered. "Well, except Toph, maybe. That brat has a nasty way of coming up with labels that stick."

"The earthbender? Oh, I must know; tell me some of these labels..," And Zuko felt his shoulders relax as he realized that his not-so-subtle restatement of his Fire Nation allegiance had not severed the odd bond he had established with Sokka.

Sokka's lips twitched. He wasn't wholly comfortable being here with _Prince _Zuko, and he desperately missed their earlier ease. He decided a little more intimate history wouldn't compromise the Avatar's position…

"She calls Aang 'Twinkle-toes', you know. I mean, there are times I find _myself _almost calling him that, for spirits' sake."

"Oh, that's _good._ The kid's light on his feet all right, but talk about turning a virtue into a laughing point! You're right, _she's_ clever."

"Oh yeah. A one-girl army, that's our Toph. While you're laughing at her stand-up routine, she'll clobber you with her earth-bending," Sokka scooped up another handful of pebbles. "Face it, Zuko, the tide really _has _turned, and Aang is _just_ the beginning!"


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: Hmm. An anonymous review attempted to place this story in canon. I started its predecessor, "Prison Conversations", with the start of the second season, adapting it to fit the season as it unfolded. For a long time, I tried to adapt "Passages" to fit in canon as well, but a reader on LJ reminded me that my character development really diverged from the second season fairly early on. She was, of course, correct. Therefore, at best this takes place somewhat after "Zuko Alone", although some elements of canon were incorporated to bring it more in line well into the second season, say, up to Tales of Ba Sing Se. But really, that is stretching it pretty far. I'm willing to accept that it went AU with "The Chase".

No, this story is not yet over. I hope I'm a good enough writer that 'the end' will be self-evident when it comes. In any case, you will have sufficient warning in author's notes and chapter titles (e.g. "epilogue") to keep you clued in. I admit, though, wrapping this puppy up is proving…challenging, given my original expectations.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action thereby.

Chapter 21

The one-girl army was resting her chin on her crossed arms, knees pulled up as she snugged her back against the wall of the saddle, struggling with her queasy stomach.

Appa was flying fast, but it would still be several hours before they would get far enough north that Aang would be ready to take a break. The boy hadn't done any real flying in weeks, not since Iroh had begun his fire-bending training, actually. Toph winced as she considered the joy that now fairly radiated in every direction from the air-bender, and the dogged determination that had been his predominant emotion since she had known him. She would bear up under the time in the air without complaint. At least the weather was still holding out today, and there were other compensations on this trip that had been missing from the last one.

Iroh was sitting just in front of her, and his ample frame made a nice wind-block.

Whereas she faced inward, the old man hung his own head over the side of the saddle, avidly watching the changing countryside below.

_No wonder the air nomads were reputed to be such a cheerful people. Flying must be the most sublime sensation a man can experience, next to looking into his child's eyes for the first time. What madness to destroy a people with the potential for so much joy! Ah, but, perhaps it was as much envy for that as it was fear of the Avatar that motivated my grandfather anyway. I can't imagine the old brute ever spent much time contemplating joy, actually. Certainly Father didn't. Of course, carrying on the unfinished war was a terrible burden for him. Truly, I swear the first time I saw him smile at me was that first day in the war room when I suggested the offensive against the Tubai Valley. What, I was only a bit older than Zuko, that horrible ill-fated day I let him into the war room. Zuko was so ill-prepared. But I'd been studying the maps for weeks, and the generals had only overlooked the possibility because they were focused on the richer Zheng River valley, where the enemy's armies were concentrated. If I'd known how rough and steep the Tubai was I might have held my tongue. Then again, that's exactly why it wasn't well fortified…_ And Iroh found himself lost in the past, remembering the pride on Azulon's face, almost forgetting the inspiration for the memory.

Katara sat at the front of the saddle, her own mind filled with memories. She was reminded yet again that, for the first time in her life, Katara had gone more than a month without seeing Sokka. Oh sure, when they were younger Sokka had gone out fishing for days at a time with their father. But after Dad left with the other men Sokka had made a point of taking her with him every time he left the village. It was as if he had sensed her loneliness, or maybe he was just compensating for his own sense of loss. Besides each other, really, they only had their aging grandmother left, and Gran-Gran had always been oddly self-sufficient when it came to the ties that bound the members of the Water Tribe.

Given what they now knew of her history, this made a certain sense. But for the children they were, it was merely a mystery that had drawn the two of them closer together. Of course, he never said as much, and Sokka certainly had made a point of being obnoxious and condescending at every opportunity. And yet, he was always _there_ for her. Had _always_ been there.

As the days of their separation continued to mount, and in her terror at his almost certain execution, Katara had felt wracked with guilt at having dragged her brother on this mad adventure to save the world with Aang. With her own increasing skills as a water-bender and subsequent rise in self-confidence, she had been only vaguely aware as Sokka shouldered his self-assigned responsibilities as group leader. Subconsciously she had noticed as he dealt with his own unsettled attachments, the crumbling of his understanding of the world and rapid rebuilding of the same, and coming to terms with the various forms of bending. She must have noticed, since she was now highly aware of a strong overlay of admiration for her brother that she didn't remember being a part of the connection she had always felt to him. After all, it was one thing to love someone; it was something else entirely to feel completely bereft at their absence.

No wonder she had felt so adrift since Sokka's capture. It wasn't just the loss of her childhood anchor that she missed; it was Sokka's firm sense of purpose and direction that she had relied upon. That they _all_ had trusted in. They had_ all_ known he wasn't really their leader, exactly. No, Sokka had become something of their human compass, in more ways than perhaps they had realized.

The blue arrow of Aang's cranial tattoo seemed to echo her thoughts as, with a turn of his head, Aang caught Katara's attention.

Pointing off to a fog-shrouded headland marking the northern end of the large bay they were currently tracking, Aang grabbed his staff. With a quick smile to Katara, he dove from Appa's head, only to immediately swoop up and outward as the glider's wings and tail fanned out. Appa grunted in acknowledgement as Katara took her friend's place with Appa's reins.

Iroh looked at Katara with the unspoken question.

"He's just going to check our bearings against the map, you know," she shrugged. "Actually, if you watch him you'll see him doing a bunch of fancy swoops and dives. I think he's just using it as an excuse to play. This kind of flying gets kind of boring for him after a while."

Toph groaned. Why did Katara have to talk about Aang's trick flying? Just when she was starting to get a handle on her air-sickness…

------------------------------------

The fog drifting in over that headland had, in fact, suggested to Aang the promise of stronger wind currents further out to sea, and he couldn't restrain himself from checking them out. The boy's limbs cried out to be tested against the shifting pressures wrought by cold waters, heated air, and stolid stone.

He knew he would find colonies of sea-birds circling and diving, forming patterns in attempts to foil the sharp eyes and even sharper acrobatics of aerial predators, all haunting the headland cliffs in a seasonal dance of death, rebirth and continuance that brought concrete meaning to the symbolic balance he had been taught all his life to revere.

And that was it, really. The sheer physical joy of outrageous flight put into the context of natural balance to justify its infinite pleasure. Aang finally realized that he was old enough to appreciate that there were very few delights indeed that did not exact some cost.

The simple reality was that he desperately needed to realize some pleasure in his life, despite his acceptance of its burdens. If that made him still too much of a child, or perhaps vaulted him into early realization of being an adult, he really didn't care to consider. After all, would it make any difference?

So a stooping hawk found itself outpaced by a vision in saffron and gold, flouting the predator's dive. One family would go hungry this day. The only question was, which one…

--------------------------------------

"Guess Jeong-Jeong isn't the only one who's a little crazy," Sokka ventured.

"Hmm. Actually, your rants are usually a bit more coherent. Or maybe just more… _entertaining_."

"Thank you very much," Sokka sighed, hunkering down to let one hand trail in the cold water at the stream's edge. "I just get tired of being told I don't understand, or that I'm a foolish kid. I _know_ that. But, dammit, I've seen battle, I've seen people die, and I can't just do _nothing_."

"I don't understand," Zuko said, his attention now fully on Sokka and his own thoughts forgotten. "You seem grimmer now than I've ever seen you. Damn it, Sokka, even when you were facing a death sentence you seemed more, well, focused and determined than you are now."

Sokka didn't answer, musing himself on the answer to Zuko's implied question. He honestly didn't understand himself.

Finding himself imprisoned with the Fire Prince, Sokka had been dismayed by the likelihood that he would not survive to help Aang accomplish his mission of bringing balance back to the world by defeating the Fire Nation. But he had found solace, first in tormenting the other boy by confounding his expectations of the inferiority of his enemy, and later in defying the Fire Nation by hounding the prince out of his depression and loss of spirit. Actually achieving escape had been the icing on the cake for Sokka, a satisfaction only exceeded by the revelation of his father's attempt to rescue him from all but certain death.

Throughout, Zuko's presence had been just another element to factor in and measure himself against. _Of course_ he had recognized his growing appreciation of Zuko's intelligence and adaptability. Which meant that Zuko's unaccountable assistance in destroying the prison remained the mystery, binding Sokka to the other boy's side when all other inclination recommended leaving him behind. Virtually all else could be explained in terms of honor debt, a concept Sokka knew was central to Zuko's being. And thus, of course, perfectly comprehensible.

He wouldn't admit it, even to himself, but it didn't hurt that Zuko was the closest he'd come to a peer since before his father's fleet had left the South Pole. It was strange, but he felt far more empathy for the Fire Prince than he had ever felt for the Northern Tribesman Hahn. When his hideously diligent brain threatened to examine the issue, he fobbed it off by admitting to himself his jealousy of Hahn's engagement to Yue, disregarding any suggestion that he might have shared more in sensibility or ethics with someone from the Fire Nation than someone from his sister tribe.

Which made it incredibly difficult when it came to explaining his own touchiness since it had become apparent that Jeong-Jeong actually looked upon Zuko with favor.

"I'm_ still_ focused. That was the point of that stupid outburst, wasn't it?" he finally said. "Jeong-Jeong was just going to rant on about one person's inability to make any real difference. You heard him. The man's totally disillusioned, and hell, I don't blame him. After all, he's been fighting on the wrong side for years - " Sokka took a sideways glance at Zuko.

"Your opinion." The prince returned mildly. The two had debated the point too many times now for Zuko to rise automatically at words that at one time would have enflamed him instantly.

"I guess I should be glad he's sidelined himself, but it still frustrates me. You just know a man like that could make a difference. If he was working for the rest of us, instead of just not working against us…" he left the thought unfinished.

"His honor is lost in stepping aside in the first place. Do you really expect him to compound it by actively helping you?"

Sokka turned to meet Zuko's gaze. Both knew that they weren't just talking about Jeong-Jeong any more.

The divide drawn by Zuko's change of clothing shouted out words they'd stubbornly avoided.

Sokka gave Zuko a lop-sided grin and shrugged. The gesture conveyed, he hoped, acceptance and understanding of Zuko's position without any hint of surrender. It was more than he would have offered even a week ago, and a part of him wished that Zuko could acknowledge the distance he had come.

"I _admit_ that it is a terrible thing to turn your back on a sworn allegiance. Jeong-Jeong owed a duty to your father, and your father is justified in outlawing him," he took a deep breath. "It takes great courage to recognize when you owe a duty to more than just your lord. I can see that many would view what Jeong-Jeong did as mere cowardice, but I do think he saw a greater duty in stepping aside. It seems to me he's prepared to face the punishment for failing the lesser duty in the face of the higher duty."

Zuko's eyes narrowed, but he kept his voice even. This was not, after all, unexpected. How long had he spent in Sokka's company, anyway?

"You are, of course, attempting to draw parallels." Neither would explicitly mention the elephant-whale in the room of a certain Fire Nation troop force.

"Hell, no. I wouldn't presume."

"Riight. Are you trying to tell me that Jeong-Jeong's 'higher duty' is owed to the Avatar, perhaps?"

Sokka snorted. "Damn, you _are_ an idiot. I thought we were both agreed that 'Jeong-Jeong' owed his highest duty to the Fire Nation. The only question is what is in the best interests of the Fire Nation. _I _say the Fire Lord clearly is not seeking the best interests of anyone but himself." Again Sokka shrugged. "But then, I guess I can't blame you for taking a Tribesman's word on that. You've got to figure it out for yourselves."

Now neither looked to the other. As sunlight dappled the water flowing before them, each took refuge in the shifting light and color, hesitant to read too much in wordless glances.

------------------------------------

'Admiral' Jeong-Jeong poured himself another cup of tea, contemplating the latest message from his brothers in the Order even as he considered the morning's development that had yielded to him an extraordinary game-piece. Should he really proceed in light of the potential presented by the presence of Prince Zuko?

Of course, there was no predicting the direction the young prince would lean. It was not, after all, inconceivable that his incarceration with an impending death sentence would have solidified in him unwavering allegiance to his lord and father. That way lay a promise of safety, no matter how illusory. And the boy was so young, and so damaged.

Still, the prince had arrived in the company of a water tribesman. The level of sheer trust between the two was extraordinarily strong, given the reports of his tactical team and various agents placed among the villagers. He'd witnessed for himself the willingness of one to endanger himself for the other.

Jeong-Jeong was no fool. The tribesman had trusted the fire-bender not to strike him down even when he had to know the fire-bender was enraged. What could have possibly built such a level of trust to bridge the gap between two such strongly opposing cultures? Was it that these were two extraordinary individuals, or merely two ordinary young men caught up in extraordinary circumstances? Perhaps it didn't even matter. The point was, this was not an opportunity to be wasted, for any of those who cared about the balance of the world being restored.

Jeong-Jeong cast the message from the Order onto the coals still burning beneath the kettle.

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	22. Chapter 22

A/N: Apologies folks. My midterms are finally over, but my writer's block isn't really. Thus you get in this chapter a bunch of introspection. All necessary towards working to the end. Trust me. Really.

As an aside, I want to pimp a new fic by AssaultSloth, called "100 Years." It's Bumi-centric and it is lovely in its prose, detail, and characterization. Truly, truly worth checking out.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action.

Chapter 22

He wanted a cup of tea. Well, he _always_ wanted a cup of tea if one wasn't already at hand, so maybe the thought really wasn't worth dwelling upon. Still, the novelty of flight had begun to pall, and the smoothness of the sky bison's gait, combined with the monotony of a slowly changing landscape so far below them, although generally obscured by cloud cover, had lulled Iroh's senses past being satisfied with lapses into memory to the point of near somnambulism, and he felt in need of herbal stimulants.

Iroh turned his face full into the wind of their passing, glad of its sharp coolness. The young earth-bender had allowed herself to lean against his bulk, and by the deep evenness of her breathing he suspected that she may have fallen asleep. Absently he shifted to let her rest more comfortably with her head in his lap, his arm stretched along hers to cover her hand gently with his own. Again he felt himself taken aback by the tremendous role these children had taken upon themselves, to right a world long gone awry. This tiny frame had the power to change the earth itself, and yet as she dozed one errant knuckle found its way to her lips, presenting to his knowing eye an all too recent toddler denied the solace of a sucked thumb.

Perhaps, in the case of this girl lacking the sense of sight, such denial had instilled a firmer root of rebellion than in the average child. Or perhaps that firmness of independence had been there all along, and it was only the eyes of near forgotten fatherhood and grief that sought out more in signs of childishness among the Avatar and his companions.

_Damn. He _really_ wanted that cup of tea._

Aang was back on his familiar perch on Appa's head, one hand curled in the soft wool behind the bison's ear as he enjoyed the thrum of energy still flowing through his limbs from the indulgence of his flight along the headland cliffs. The thrill of freefall, pulling out just above a wave's cresting, only to dive yet again in front of and along the breaking wave, had sent a chemical surge through his blood that made him feel more alive than anything he had done in months!

A part of him had recognized how he had held the wave's crest from breaking just that millisecond longer to allow him to soar his way across its front, something he could never have done merely as an air-bender, or at least not nearly as easily. And he acknowledged some brief reward for the burden of his unique position as Avatar in the joy he'd experienced with that ride.

Subtle corners of his brain had noted the friability of the western scarp of the cliff-face, hollowed out with birds' nests yet underlain by a core of denser granite, the layers of stone upthrust in a twisted agony that he suspected maybe even Toph did not fully comprehend.

As he had pulled up from the face of the wave to catch a rising column of air against the cliff Aang had been struck by a cacophony of perceptions that nearly brought him crashing into the surf. The endless rhythm of the surf, coupled with windborne grit, pounding and grinding against the seemingly impenetrable surface of the land, which nevertheless daily yielded, here just a few grains and there with a fall of tons of stone.

Doggedly Aang had climbed the air currents, letting the sensory impressions fall unfiltered upon his consciousness, determined to accept whatever his role in this world must be after having run away from it what still felt like only a short time ago. But it had been fully a century in time. As he gained altitude and adjusted his flight path to rejoin Appa and the others he found himself almost subconsciously reconciling the violence of this clash of the elements with his earlier recognition of how the biological world balanced itself. So much violence in the natural world seemed to, on one level anyway, justify violence in society, didn't it?

_The difference_, he thought to himself, _was that people could make choices where nature could not. Did that not demand a higher standard of behavior in achieving the balance all things needed? Especially since the wrong choices could so easily destroy all balance for everything. _

Aang thought deeply, once back in the security offered by his animal guide. He was twelve going on one-hundred-thirteen. He had fought battles, escaped numerous capture attempts, overcome hatred and misunderstanding, and even survived near-death.

He accepted that so much more was expected of him, even as so much more had been given to him, all without his choosing one way or another. With a wry chuckle, it occurred to him that he was the bridge between worlds in the curious dichotomy of choices within the lack of choice as well. And yes, some choices were definitely still left to him. As the rightness of what he had first thought was mere self-indulgence in his solo flight permeated into his muscle memory and bone structure Aang felt a sense of affirmation that in seeking out Sokka he was doing more than returning a friend to his side.

Something was calling to him beyond friendship. Something that seemed to speak with a definitive voice. For lack of anything better, Aang had begun to call that voice in his own mind by the heady name of destiny.

-----------------------------------

Zuko no longer believed destiny had any truck with him, except maybe to make him its bitch. But then, weeks observing first-hand the pinch of a war-ravaged people, followed by a month in prison as a traitor in the company of the epitome of the Fire Nation ambition's enemies, had scoured out even that pathetic arrogance.

Zuko had surrendered all sense of entitlement, for good or ill, in the face of what he perceived as having been wholly discarded, by family and fortune. When he had felt he could sink no lower, wallowing in the pangs of personal loss, he'd seen families devastated by losses that beggared his; losses of parent, sibling or child, sometimes all, as the war whipped by oblivious to personal tragedy. It had been…humbling.

Still, he had clung to his personal pathos longer than, later, he realized he should have. He didn't remember when in their conversations during their time in prison and beyond that he'd learned of Sokka's own loss of his mother to a Fire Nation raid when he was no older than Zuko had been when his mother had disappeared. Neither had elaborated on their individual experiences, but Zuko had gleaned enough from what the other boy didn't say to know he'd actually seen his mother die, and that there were details there that didn't bear remembering, let alone repeating. While Zuko mined his memories for some sense of resonance, he'd found an odd sense of ease in Sokka's acceptance of his own sense of grief. It had been during some argument they'd had about the best way to learn something, anything, that Zuko had learned of the further loss of Sokka's father with all the other warriors to take the fight away from their village about the same time as his own exile, explaining why Zuko had found the young warrior as its sole defense when the Avatar had made his appearance.

Zuko's father had sent him on a hopeless quest, while Sokka's father had entrusted him with the care of their people. The comparison was made even more painful by Sokka's lack of training and resources, especially relative to Zuko's own wealth, even in the face of exile.

For all that it had seemed that fate had taken up the Water Tribe boy in its embrace, tacking him onto the Avatar's entourage for all those months, even as Zuko had been finally abandoned, so too had fate cut off Sokka from any real role in world events by casting him into the Fire Nation prison. It was only a joke on destiny's part to place them together.

In prison Zuko had laughed to himself at the irony of this, not deigning to share his thoughts with Sokka. It suited his bitter sense of freedom from destiny's choreography to see himself so yoked in tandem with the apparently luckless peasant. Especially since he had long begun to suspect that Sokka deserved so much more.

He tried desperately to believe it was still such a joke when the two of them had escaped together. That despite every opportunity to part ways they still sojourned together, that every day compounded their bonds to one another in ways simply unimaginable given who they were. Fire prince and Water Tribe peasant. When he thought about it, Zuko was inspired to laugh – a fitting joke for destiny, indeed!

It wasn't what he expected, but meeting up with Jeong-Jeong had given him new hope.

He wasn't sure what he thought might come of it, but even as he had known that his Uncle Iroh could never betray the Fire Nation, he wanted to follow his heart and believe that Jeong-Jeong also had been misunderstood. And something that had confused him about his uncle he saw yet again in Jeong-Jeong.

Jeong-Jeong had not attempted to excuse his actions, nor did he appear to look to Zuko to either understand or intercede for him. Of course, this could have been merely the result of practicality; what influence could an exiled prince have in any deserter's trial?

But it was apparent to Zuko that Jeong-Jeong had no lack of self-pride. He didn't like to think about it, but his uncle's easy acceptance of other's obloquy had always grated at him. He'd never understood why his uncle had accepted so easily his own loss of the throne, and as a child had assumed it was a sign that his father's ascendancy was in fact proper. Later still, his ire at his uncle's humility in the face of adversity had only underscored his own confusion regarding his exile and the events surrounding it.

He didn't understand it at all. He knew his uncle was an extraordinary fire-bender, a keen mind and a beloved leader. Why did he not stand up for himself the way he had stood in defense of another culture's guiding spirit all those months ago?

And now, with Jeong-Jeong, the question raised itself yet again.

And what did it mean for his own sense of honor?

It was all too much for Zuko to puzzle out, although he knew he would do so, in time. In the meanwhile, was it really so bad to rest in the traditions of his people, the simple distinctions of dress, manner and foodstuffs, honored in this haphazard band of military deserters and colonists gone astray.

And, as always it seemed whenever he became introspective these days, another question came to mind. What role, if any, did Sokka have in this realignment of Zuko's role in the Fire Nation? Was the joke finally over?

-----------------------------------

Was this it, then? Or was this some kind of joke?

Had Sokka abandoned his disdain for destiny just to find himself returning the Fire Prince into some haphazard power play with his sister for the role of chief oppressor under their father's dominion?

Now that would truly suck.

Okay, if worse came to worst and that was in fact the truth of the matter, Sokka was still prepared to back Zuko over Azula – Zuko was an arrogant jerk but he was unflinchingly honest and did seem to truly respect some universal sense of morality. All those weeks ago his instinct had told him as much, and his experience with the prince confirmed it. Yeah, it could definitely be worse. He could have let Zuko die and left the field entirely to Azula. Well, he could certainly claim some small victory in thwarting that prospect.

But Sokka had believed there was so much more there, and it was that belief that had guided his hand in pulling the spear from Zuko's shoulder, that had led him to stand up to his father on Zuko's behalf, and had pressed his boat's tiller into the Fire prince's hesitant hand. That belief had been bolstered by Zuko's quick defense of Sokka against Jet, his willingness to turn away from that battle without killing the other boy, the lack of killer instinct in dealing with the salvage scum, and in so many less obvious moments of weeks' worth of shared ruminations on war, economics, strategy and gamesmanship, poetry, history, music and occasional commentary on family, honor, and even, so recently, love.

They had abused one another verbally, attempted to outsmart and impress each other too often for either to have much left in the way of hidden reserves. Sokka _knew_ this in every bone of his body, knew it such that he had no more hesitation in chastising Zuko than he did with Katara, Aang or even Toph. Without even thinking about it he'd come to trust the other boy. At first he would have merely admitted to trusting Zuko with his own life, judging it a commodity he could easily afford to bet with.

Now he realized he was fully prepared to trust Zuko with the lives of his friends, with even Aang. And as the prospect of Zuko staying with Jeong-Jeong forestalled this option, Sokka found himself in the odd position of wanting to actually expose his dearest friends to more risk, and he had no real idea on what basis he could justify the risk.

No wonder he felt cranky and irrational.

On its face, for the Fire Prince to find a place with the Deserter was both logical and optimal. Jeong-Jeong had abandoned the Fire Lord's cause, the Fire Lord had abandoned his son, and Zuko should be both reasonably safe with Jeong-Jeong and unlikely to cause problems for the rest of the world, at least over the near term. It was like finding a nice safe place to house a potential asset during a drawn-out business transaction. Sokka had watched his father negotiate often enough with various suppliers from the Earth Kingdom to recognize the analogy easily enough.

And he'd spent more than enough time with Zuko to know that only an idiot would try to package him as any kind of asset. But then, most people didn't have the benefit of Sokka's exposure to Zuko.

Worse. He had a sneaking suspicion that if had occurred to him to consider Zuko as an asset it had probably occurred to someone else as well. And Sokka had never been fully reconciled to the idea of Jeong-Jeong as a purely reclusive deserter. Deserters didn't need personal armies. Sokka liked to think that his uneasiness had its home in this suspicioun, and had nothing to do with the prospect of finally parting from someone he'd come to think of as a comrade.

Of course, Zuko was no idiot. He'd have figured out as much as well, and Sokka shouldn't worry too much. But the real question remained.

Where _did_ Jeong-Jeong stand?

--------------------------------------------

"My Prince. General Iroh has been responsible for your training these last years, hasn't he?" Neither boy had noticed the old soldier's appearance above the stream-bank. Each sought his memory guiltily for disrespectful references to their host, wondering at what point he had first observed their conversation.

Jeong-Jeong didn't see fit to enlighten them.

"Yes, sir. My training has not been neglected. I beat Admiral Zhao in an Agni Kai last fall," Zuko wished he could have eaten his own words as he remembered that Jeong-Jeong had been Zhao's master before the arrogant officer had gained his commander's rank. Then he straightened his back in determination. "Zhao was a potent fighter, but he was power-hungry and dangerous; he tried to have me killed."

"Zhao was a monkey-faced maniac. He's a perfect example of why the Fire Nation's anathema to the rest of the world!" Sokka hadn't meant to speak aloud, but he had evoked Yue's memory too recently to keep silent as he and Zuko climbed the bank to stand before the fire-bending master.

Zuko sighed. They were standing close enough for him to dig an elbow into Sokka's side.

Although Jeong-Jeong did not hear his murmured "Not helping" comment, and had caught only part of the preceding speech by the Tribesman, his own experiences with Zhao were sufficient to fill in the gaps.

"I would not presume to challenge you, my prince. But perhaps you would indulge me with a demonstration of your skills? Shall we spar?"

Zuko dropped into a fire-bending stance. As on the beach facing Jet, it did not occur to him to even look for his dual swords. This was all about fire-bending, and being a fire-bender. Sokka stepped quickly aside, deciding that prudence was undoubtedly the better part of valor, especially when it was pretty obvious that no real harm was intended by either party. Easily enough said, when both parties were fire-benders. Something else again when the observers weren't!

Sokka had had many opportunities to observe Zuko's fire-bending prowess. He'd seen, if only briefly, General Iroh in action, and even faced for a few moments with Princess Azula. But he'd never actually seen Jeong-Jeong move, and for the first time he gained an appreciation for the difference between a well-trained and powerful junior like Zuko and a true fire-bending master.

Not that it was a complete surprise. Sokka's father was a master strategist, and had taught his son well. For all Sokka's discounting of 'bending' during his days at the South Pole, he was a quick learner. While he'd spent hours in the warrior's hall at the North Pole honing his own skills he's also sneaked visits to observe the water-benders at their craft.

Sokka had been more surprised at the teacher's swiftness of recognizing his sister's attainment of master status as a water-bender than he was at her ability to reach that level. But even as his heart swelled with familial pride – something he would never admit to Katara, of course, he also noted some practical distinctions between Katara and the other students. She was skilled, with a doubt, but some of the other students were in fact stronger. But in the sparring circle she beat them every time. It didn't take long for him to recognize the difference more as a matter of speed and judgment than pure skill.

Seeing that reflected in fire-bending was, oddly enough, not that much more difficult in learning to observe it in water-bending or martial arts. From there, Sokka made the obvious leap.

Mastery in anything is judgment as to when and how to act in any given situation. True mastery is not in the skill, but in the wisdom as to when to exercise it.

In that moment Sokka leapt from being a clever young man to being a potential bender of fate.

It was, happily for the rest of the world, years before he realized the fact.

----------------------------


	23. Chapter 23

A/N: Eh, I'd thought I'd manage two chapters anyway during my brief class break. Sorry folks. Got other things on the burner to attend to…. Hope you find this reasonably satisfying. If not, well, bummer.

(revised 3/12)

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action.

Chapter 23

"He's actually better when he _needs_ to be," Sokka muttered thoughtfully. "When he's got some purpose besides the fighting itself. Huh. Guess that's probably true for all of us, but man, most of us don't have to go so far to pull our heads out of our asses."

_So how'd he manage to make _you_ look like such a wuss all those months ago? And how about how neatly he put paid to that salvage scum?_ Sokka asked himself. _Well, _I_ managed to make the other salvage idiot look like an amateur… and that's _exactly_ what I am compared to Zuko. So duh!_

Actually, he was harder on himself than was strictly accurate, at least regarding his current assessment of his skills. Suki's lessons in close combat had been reinforced by Sokka's own diligent workouts, careful observation, and training under others at every opportunity, from the Northern Water Tribe warriors to the Earth Kingdom and even sparring with Aang and Toph. He could be a dangerous person to mess with. And he knew it, not least because he was perfectly prepared to fight dirty if he had to.

Zuko, on the other hand, was all about power and elegant moves. He'd never aim a kick at another guy's balls. Sokka grimaced as he stroked his chin in thought. That kind of restraint could get a guy killed.

On the other hand, Jeong-Jeong was much harder to assess. The man's economy of motion was incredible. His stance was low and Sokka could sense the tension along the man's leg muscles as his own thighs started to cramp just from watching. Deliberately he straightened his spine, shifting his weight over on one hip as he shook out the muscles of the other leg. _Damn._ Sometimes his own focus got a little carried away.

Sokka remembered Iroh moving so quickly, with short, powerful thrusts against the tight circle of fire-benders there at the North Pole oasis, such that the fire itself seemed merely an extension of his arms and legs, instantly ignited and just as quickly contained. Jeong-Jeong's moves were similar, although there was a grace to them, a _showiness_, that Sokka hadn't remembered from either Iroh's brief scuffle or, for that matter, even Zuko's many encounters. As he watched, it occurred to Sokka that Zuko's style, while clearly influenced by the man who had trained him while in exile, also obviously owed a lot to another school of fire-bending, one more closely aligned to Jeong-Jeong's athleticism. Interesting.

It was apparent to Sokka that Jeong-Jeong was pretty much playing with Zuko at this point.

Sokka grinned. He fully appreciated how often he'd been in a position to watch others fight – obviously often enough to develop an eye for distinctions not just between 'bending styles but even _within_ them. The question remained, could he use what he observed to help his own efforts? Again, it all depended on the situation, didn't it? As to which approach would be most effective, yes, like using the right tool for the job. Of course, sometimes you just had to make do with what you got.

He noticed that Zuko was breathing heavily. Idiot. He was also now blatantly favoring his previously injured shoulder, and Sokka began to curse himself for allowing this display to go on as long as it had. He'd assumed Jeong-Jeong would end it once he'd realized what poor shape Zuko was actually in. Then again, maybe Jeong-Jeong simply _didn't_ realize it, clear as it was to Sokka's eye. Or maybe this was some stupid element of Fire Nation pride at work. Dammit again.. _That _was probably it.

He looked around, noticing that the supposedly casual sparring session had drawn more than a few observers, none of which seemed disposed to intervene. Sokka sighed heavily. Time to use his dumb tool-in-the-toolbox analogy and pull some kind of resolution to this match out of his butt before it became too apparent that Zuko was getting his head handed to him on a platter. He could feel Zuko's anger starting to seethe.

He still stood on the stream-bank, one leg balanced on a large boulder embedded in the bank while the other rested easily on a smaller one. Shit. Zuko would kill him if he stopped the altercation again as obviously as he had the first time. He cursed silently as he continued to assess the situation. Was it really necessary that he assuage the fire-prince's pride? Well, yes. It probably was, annoying as it was on, let's face it, virtually all levels. He struggled hard with himself, remembering his loyalty to Aang, his sister, and yes, the world at large, against his vanity's odd insistence that his efforts to salvage Zuko not, in fact, be at waste.

Thus it was the eyes of a simi-ignorant engineer recognized this part of the bank as some forgotten farmer's attempt to bolster the sides of the stream against the water's constant erosive shift, piling rocks upon rocks to block the inexorable pull on the sediment from the flow. _Dumb_, he thought, even as he considered his options. _If you're gonna do it, you gotta do it right. They didn't fill the gaps between the rocks, and the whole thing's gonna give one of these days. Just one good flood…_

Sokka kicked at the boulder next to the one he stood on. Yep. Pretty unsteady. Though this one? No, not enough. He gauged the slope of the land as it followed the downstream curve, making unconscious calculations regarding probabilities that subconsciously he wished he had the math to back up. Then there was the likelihood of his ability to dodge out of the way to consider; he had no intention of getting hurt himself. He looked again at the combatants. Nope, still no sign of quitting. Stupid. He sighed again.

See? Now _this_ was when you wanted to have an earth-bender to pull out of your pocket. With a chortle as he pictured diminutive Toph leaping out of the folds of his tunic, Sokka leapt three boulders down, turning to shove hard with his legs against the next largest downstream rock, yelling at the same time…

"Avalanche!"

Having leapt back to the safety of the upper bank, he happily watched the stream-bank give way, tumbling down across the bed in an effective dam, thus blocking the flow of water and consequently causing the water level to rise against the remaining banks. Exactly as he'd hoped and expected.

On the other hand, Sokka noticed a remarkable hesitancy on the part of either the combatants or their observers to act in response to either his yell or the events playing out before them.

Dumbass Fire Nation! So caught up in the spectacle of a bit of fire-play before them they couldn't recognize real danger and act upon it? Shit! _These_ were the people taking over the world? And nobody could stop them? Sokka slapped his forehead hard in frustration.

Some days it didn't pay to be alive.

* * *

Zuko had started the match in a fit of exhilaration. Jeong-Jeong was one of the heroes of the Fire Nation, not just for his exploits in furthering the War of Conquest but also for his advances in the art of fire-bending. He knew even Uncle Iroh had admired the beauty of Jeong-Jeong's form, the power that carried through the leaps, kicks, and elegant punches.

It was the form Zuko had _initially _been trained within, and it had been hard to mask his disappointment when, upon his exile, his uncle had agreed to continue training him, but had fallen back upon the older form from his own youth. Zuko had fretted, feeling like he'd lost years in Iroh's insistence that he master basic forms from the _older_ style before he allowed him to progress to the higher, more complex forms that appeared to be more of a blending of the two styles, not so dependent on either.

Still, Uncle Iroh's hard, power-filled strokes had largely served him well, although they'd _not _been sufficient to dispatch the Avatar. Still, there _was_ a rootedness that gave him strength and stamina to draw upon, something the newer form didn't quite manage.

But Azula had mastered the new form, had found it perfect to build upon, and _this_ was a constant burr beneath Zuko's skin, driving him to impatience with his uncle and his own apparent lack of progress in fire-bending. Still, he _had_ bested Zhao, not just in the _Agni Kai_ but also in that impromptu fight at the North Pole. He knew it. He'd just never gotten Zhao to acknowledge it. Was _that_ what had driven the man to choose death at the hands of the Ocean Spirit over life at his hands? Zuko would never know.

But sparring with Jeong-Jeong was _nothing _like fighting against Zhao. Or, for that matter, like any other opponent Zuko had ever met. He remembered the fury and speed of the Earth Kingdom terrorist he'd met with Sokka, and how that young man's passion and skill had challenged him at first, before he'd called upon his own will to win and, yes, to kill. He still questioned the wisdom of his bowing to Sokka's determination to let the terrorist live.

They'd both rationalized it as the lynchpin in the giant's willingness to let them sail away without further duress, but Zuko knew in his heart that _that_ would have happened anyway, that the only reason he hadn't killed Jet was his own reluctance to _kill_ anyway, compounded by the water boy's equally weak stomach when it came to death.

But of course, Sokka _had_ killed Fire Nation soldiers. _That_ had been made clear during their incarceration together in the Fire Nation prison, and it explained why it took so long for their guards to fall prey to his smooth tongue and laughing charm. _And_ why they'd bothered to pay attention to him at all in the first place. Perhaps it had also colored the way he'd listened to the annoying Tribesman's prattle. Perhaps.

Zuko ignored his own reaction to the knowledge. They both did. Perhaps they'd both pretended that, up to the time of their escape from the hopelessness of their death sentences, that neither had done anything to deserve them. Some ideas were easier than the truth.

Zuko himself had wielded death reluctantly. He still remembered throwing up afterwards in that altercation with pirates not long after they'd first left Fire Nation seas, his opponent's blood staining the crimson of his armor a deeper red, edging into dull black, and the way it had colored the decks of his ship.

He hadn't exactly _regretted_ Sokka's interference in that battle with Jet.

As he sparred against Jeong-Jeong he'd felt the moves falling upon him as naturally as if he'd been born to them. At first he'd assumed it was a call upon old memory. Perhaps two leaps later he'd realized that Jeong-Jeong's "new" form was merely built upon the core of the older form, and that having mastered the first the later style just required a shifting of attitude, of… what, presence of mind? As he contemplated the difference, Jeong-Jeong flattened him.

With a growl Zuko came to his feet, determined to show the old master how well he'd mastered the old form, if he couldn't beat him at the new. He struggled to keep his mind on the task at hand.

As he fought, Zuko attempted to incorporate his uncle's teachings. Learn from your opponent, learn how he fights – not just to determine how to beat him but also to gain wisdom in fighting to build upon your own. There is no such thing as mastery of any particular style – the art of winning is all about the art of _learning_.

Zuko exhibited fine footwork and potent fire-bending technique. He never forgot that this was a mere sparring match, but he also threw everything he had into it. He did not want to excuse any failures on the privations of his time in prison at his father's hand. He _could_ not confess the failure of falling prey to a Water Tribe spear.

But Jeong-Jeong was not human.

In comparison, Zhao had been easy. _He'd_ been a fool, total prey to his own ambition and temper, and Zuko had learned early in the _Agni Kai_ to draw the man's temper out, teasing him in a display of fire-bending that appeared to exhaust him in flash and advanced moves that Zuko knew in his heart Zhao'd barely mastered.

It had been easy to crush Zhao by keeping his focus on the root of fire-bending – Zhao was so obviously caught up in the flash and heat of fire-bending's potential.

But it was stupid to assume that Jeong-Jeong, just because he was Zhao's teacher and the leader of the "new" form, was ignorant of the _true_ root and power of fire-bending.

And Zuko had been stupid. Dammit.

Sokka was so much better at reading this shit than he was. Why was it that having spent well over a month in the Tribesman's company he hadn't learned enough of Sokka's thinking to apply it when he _needed_ to? What the fuck was the good of recognizing ability or worth in a person if you couldn't _use_ it when you needed it? He took another hard fall, noting as an aside an appraising look on the face of the Tribesman at the bank's edge.

He stood up, punching hard with his left arm in a focused blaze against the old bending master, feeling more and more stupid.

And then it felt a bit like the world exploded.

Zuko's first thought as he rolled with the shaking of the earth was, "Sokka, _now_ what!"

* * *

Katara appraised the landscape below them with the eyes of a Tribesman, well-honed by her own personal experience and homilies droned into her psyche by her father and brother.

There, in a deep fold of the bay lay the village.

From the air it was obviously swollen with trade, regardless of which side of the line it lay. From the maps it was clear that An Dui had found itself on either side of the line many a time. Iroh had suggested the village would probably take a pragmatic tone, and as they flew lower no one was particularly surprised to see the flag of the Earth Kingdom bobbing from the top of the watch tower. A Fire Nation flag was probably kept at the ready in a nearby chest.

Of course, their maps had shown a clear retreat on the part of the Fire Nation to the north, nearly a month now old.

It should have been enough in itself to give Aang a boost of self confidence. Except that Iroh had blandly reminded him that a retreat here might merely indicate an advance elsewhere. Iroh's amber eyes had fixed Aang's pale gray with an unusual fierceness.

"Count_ the losses, Aang, and the gains. That's what the rulers do. Does it matter to you what the people think? Remember, what does it matter to them whom they serve? To their masters they are marks upon the game board, worth this or that. Weigh the marks, Aang. What weighs the most?"_

Katara hated Iroh for trying to remind Aang of the bigger picture. She'd seen it before, and while she had no rational argument against it, her heart protested wordlessly. It didn't help that the old man seemed to read her heart and did not attempt to change her mind. These were the times she missed Sokka most. She somehow believed her brother could articulate her objections to this calculus by the numbers, even as she knew her hard-headed brother trusted more in science than in values of the heart.

Aang felt some sense of relief as the attenuated connection between Sokka and him suffered a certain abbreviation as he approached the port town. It did not eliminate all concern as he realized Sokka was not, unfortunately after all, in An Dui itself, and hadn't been for some hours now. The connection remained, as strong as ever, but not so clearly defined.

But they weren't far off. Aang indicated to Appa to descend to the town center. It was on the right side of the war front, right? Why shouldn't they ask the townsfolk if they'd seen any sign of a wandering Water-tribesman?

Why not?

Iroh, the retired general, the master strategist, _explained_ why not. To ask about a friend of the Avatar was to link the Avatar to that site, and to do so was to draw the Fire Nation's attention there. Iroh really didn't need to say anything more. Katara had the images of Kyoshi Island burned upon her eyelids. While Toph thrilled upon the idea of drawing the enemy anywhere, she definitely grimaced at the idea of running beforehand. A necessary adjunct to the task at hand. It was, after all, _all_ about rescuing Sokka.

It was enough for Aang to insist that Katara and Toph go out alone to gather information. He wouldn't risk the village with even the sight of him. At twelve-going-on-one-hundred-thirteen, Aang questioned his own motivations, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he and Iroh shopped the miscellaneous carts aligned along the town's center.

When Iroh disappeared inside a tea-shop, Aang felt disinclined to follow. Iroh was a sponge for tea – they all knew it – and was perfectly inclined to indoctrinate any random companions to the intricacies of flavor and balance. Spirits knew they'd heard him expound on such virtually everywhere they went. Now and then he'd find some kindred spirit, who seemed equally inclined to the joys of pai show. Between the two infatuations, Iroh was adamant. There was no tearing him away.

Aang had been the first to note a recurrence of taste between the two interests. Granted, he enjoyed a good game of pai show himself, and the integrity – and cleverness – of Iroh's play had been the first thing that had brought him to trust the elderly fire-bender. As for tea, well, he and Toph were both accustomed to the taste; it had taken little to draw Katara into a common interest, if not addiction, to the soothing hot beverage.

In time, they'd all agreed that Sokka's prejudices would have denied them all any recourse to the herb, as stimulant or otherwise. It was the one case in which they all tacitly agreed that they'd be idiots to heed his warnings.

Perhaps it was this humble beginning that had seeded a willingness to disregard Sokka's warnings in general. Perhaps it could have been attributed to the older boy's natural attitude of ascension and, frankly, arrogant assumption of superiority as played off against their, albeit younger, but so obviously superior abilities as 'benders.

In hindsight, no one really cared to examine things one way or another for fault.

* * *

Being blind was, largely, more annoying in the matter of communication than anything else. She'd known this innately as an infant, only to find some minute comfort in being able to bring words to articulate her frustration as time went on.

Years later, she'd flown enough with Aang's coterie enough to know that her comrades were sufficiently oblivious to her failings as to require her to actually _voice_ her concerns. Since this was exactly the way she liked it she took it upon herself to point out the occasionally obvious failings her limitations forced upon her. On the whole, it was a pleasure. Alas, this particular situation was far too early in their association to have established this understanding.

"Sorry, Toph, I know I should know better than to forget you don't know what kind of environment we're setting down into, but I keep forgetting…" Katara said regretfully as she helped – not Toph, but Iroh – down Appa's back into the wide village square.

Iroh chuckled quietly, noting the earth-bender's caustic comments as to the water-bender's perceptions even as she easily walked up the quay towards the most prosperous-appearing establishment. It was an interesting balance this girl chose to walk.

Toph was feeling torn. And she didn't like it.

Her conflicted feelings regarding the old fire-bender had required major upheaval of her loyalties and natural allegiances. And yet, _this_ was the man who had accepted her sight unseen – a code for the blind with extraordinary meaning.

It had not escaped her perception that the old fire-bender withheld ultimate judgment of them all. It couldn't, of course, and she suspected that he was aware of her misgivings and didn't care. She'd have voiced as much if it weren't for the imperative that Aang learn fire-bending.

She was reasonably confident that Aang had learned fire-bending far beyond the old general's expectations.

And this realization soothed her even as she recognized her need to trust the man. She'd never trusted her earth-bending father the way her soul bent to embrace this man from an alien culture.

Toph being Toph, she suspected that where her father was perfectly content to betray the world for his own ends, the old fire-bender would only betray the world if he believed his ends would make the world a better place for all. Iroh's means may be wrong but his _ends_ were not. She was a child, she knew, but even a child knew right from wrong when it came to end goals. Maturity was in gauging how to get there.

Did she really believe she was any better in second-guessing her friends as to their direction? Of course not. That was the real point in rescuing Sokka, wasn't it? Granted the guy couldn't bend worth shit; he somehow knew better than any of them what they needed to do to win in the end.

Right?

_Right?_

* * *

_A/N: Speaking of hindsight, Sokka's reaction seems rather extreme; he could easily have lobbed a stone at Jeong-Jeong to distract him sufficiently as to end the bout. On the other hand, this would have been obvious to Zuko, whose pride was on the line, and Sokka knew it. It was, admittedly, a bit of a stretch on Sokka's part to assume that the fire-bender camp would adjust quickly enough to the emergency he created as to avoid any incidental harm. On the other hand, this is a 15-16-year-old kid more interested in his friend's state of mind – which he has worked hard over the last month to restore and preserve – than anything else. It shouldn't be surprising that he would have not really considered the "incidental" effects of his flooding of the valley._

_Kids! Damned idiots, all of them!_


	24. Chapter 24

A/N: SOOO HAARD to get myself back into this, and frankly, since there's a bunch of navel-gazing in it again I doubt if many of you will like this chapter. I'm just having a hell of a time advancing the story to the great final confrontation. I re-read this idiotic thing from the beginning – it is WAY TOO LONG already, and noticed my earlier chapters were no more than 1,000 words or so. Somewhere along the line I seemed to get the idea I needed to write a lot more. Now, I've decided that was just plain wrong. And with that decision, maybe I can finish this stupid thing by, say, Christmas? Ugh. No, by the start of the next season, I hope.

(revised 3/12)

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action.

Chapter 24

He would have liked to enumerate all the reasons he'd built up over time to hate the Water Tribe peasant. Seriously. He couldn't though, primarily because he lacked the breath for it, as he heaved a sigh while those around him leapt to bring fire-bending's evaporative force against the stream while others manhandled the fallen stones out of the stream's path.

Zuko knew, although he certainly couldn't say how, that this particularly unseasonable flood was somehow due to his Water Tribe companion's efforts. He hadn't actually _heard _any explosions, _per se_, just a frantic yell and the crash and dull rumble of falling rock, followed by the suddenly ominous shift in the sound of the stream from a low rustle to more of a slap and humming as it rose up against the haphazard dam and banks. So he didn't actually suspect Sokka of having somehow secreted explosives from their prison break to use for no apparent reason now. But at this point it wouldn't have exactly surprised him to learn that Sokka had put aside a few impact grenades for just such an occasion. Except that they could have used such things against Jet and his thugs, or maybe the stupid wreckers – well, no, that would have been a waste – or certainly to get out of the warehouse. So _why_ would he wait until now, when it really wasn't necessary?

So he really _didn't_ think Sokka had somehow blown up the bank of the stream and caused the flood. Not really. Nonetheless, Zuko was still sure that Sokka was responsible somehow! And he suspected the reason for the strange "accident" of fate was to give him a break in his test of skills against the fire-bending master Jeong-Jeong. As if he _needed_ such a break.

Damned interfering Tribesman!

* * *

In a moment or two, as soon as he'd caught his breath and he'd managed to impose his will over his aching muscles and that throbbing in his shoulder that suggested – no, insisted! – that he'd torn open that stupid spear thrust again, he would work his way over to where Sokka was assisting the repair effort. And then he'd find a way to trip him up into the water just to let him know that he wasn't getting away with this. No chance.

Jeong-Jeong gently drew in a sigh of relief as his men's cries of concern brought a halt to the bout with the Fire Prince. For some minutes he'd been seeking a face-saving way of bringing the display to an end, but the ferocity shown by the prince had confounded him in all respects.

It wasn't that he'd regretted his challenge – it had been highly instructive to see how well versed the young man was in the fire-bending arts, how disciplined his form was, and how much his pride and passion lent to his overall skill. Jeong-Jeong remembered the rumors that had circulated among the military upon the conclusion of the prince's Agni Kai with the Fire Lord. The boy had been dismissed in favor of his enormously talented sister, both for his lack of apparent "ferocity" against his father and his lack of obvious talent.

But Jeong-Jeong had already begun to devalue the utility of ferocity, a trend initiated by his best student's blindness to the need to wed passion to discipline. This had started a slow erosion of his own confidence in the purity of his devotion to bringing out the power in fire-bending over all else. By the time of Prince Zuko's Agni Kai, Jeong-Jeong was already well into questioning the toll on his soul of his relentless devotion to improving the art of fire-bending. It was an easy leap for a man of his discipline to then question the toll fire-bending itself took on a man's soul.

He had loved fire-bending. By sheer talent and dogged study, Jeong-Jeong had raised himself from the ranks of the enlisted to the Fire Nation's elite, consorting at one point with the crown prince himself in the heady environment of those who could wield true power, not just fire-bending. But for Jeong-Jeong, it had always been the guided release of the passion inherent in fire-bending, the power coursing through his veins like some stimulant beyond all others. Reined to his personal whim, it was intoxicating even as it left his head incredibly clear.

Jeong-Jeong believed, for some few years, that fire-bending was the dividing line between men and gods. This belief survived his campaigns against the Southern Water Tribes, was even strengthened by his successes there. Until one day…

The only mention anywhere as to how Jeong-Jeong received the disfiguring scars that made his visage so memorable, even _before_ he abandoned his topknot for a deserter's wild mop of hair, was in a medical report accompanying an account of the last battle with the Southern Water-benders.

It noted the clean lifting away of flesh by razor-thin blades of ice that had remained frozen against the skin long enough to permanently scar, mimicking the claws of beasts with the precision of man at a distance. The report, with its rather surprisingly vivid imagery, was lost among the more bizarre records of field examinations of an elite group of fire-benders that had accompanied Admiral Jeong-Jeong, and fallen, on that final mission. The autopsies, admittedly performed under less than ideal conditions in the rough seas and frigid air of the Pole, revealed vital organs engorged with blood even as limbs appeared desiccated.

The Admiral's report had detailed how the weather had abetted the water-benders' tactics against them; how the long winter's night without hope of sun had nearly defeated them. But that, thanks to their superior numbers, they had finally brought down the last defense of the South's greatest stronghold.

The report did not mention how the cold had not only marked his face but had crept into his bones, daring the flame within his blood to drive it out. It did not say how the barrage of heat was answered by an avalanche of water that consumed troops as the ice melted.

Jeong-Jeong never told anyone that the last water-bender to face them was an elderly woman who annihilated his elite guard with a single graceful movement, sorrow writ starkly across her exotic features. That alone, he had stood before her, raising a curtain of flame with what he believed was his last breath, only to have it thrust aside by a wave that became knives of ice against his skin, dropping him to the frozen ground.

He was in an agony of pain, numbness and despair.

She did not speak to him, but drew near enough to touch him. And, with a look in alien blue eyes he would never forget and never fathom, removed her mitten to touch one of the frozen blades imbedded in his face. Immediately the dull numbness of dying flesh was replaced with a tingling sensation suggesting warmth, only to disappear as Jeong-Jeong summoned a final burst of strength in a fire-ball that caught the old fire-bender in the throat, darkening those strange eyes with a skein of death.

And he did not tell the medic that his scars numbered one fewer than had been originally inflicted. _That_ scar he did not bear on his face. Rather, it burned within his soul.

* * *

Leave it to Katara to seek out the chandler's shop early on. Perhaps she was guided by the sight of a Water Tribe boat moored at the pier, although it had occurred to none of them that Sokka would have had the luck to find passage with a fellow Tribesman.

Face it. They all knew Sokka's luck was shitty. Case on point, take his love life. He'd fallen for the Northern princess, who… died. He'd rebounded with Suki of Kyoshi Island. Maybe she _wasn't_ dead, but damn! She had definitely disappeared in fairly hopeless circumstances. Nobody would admit it, but they all felt guilty for believing just a bit that to fall under Sokka's favor was, for a girl, the kiss of death. Okay, maybe that was a bit extreme, but frankly, as the lone girl at any potential risk, Toph admitted to herself she was not prepared to tempt the fates – let alone her heart - for a silly infatuation with a goofy guy who couldn't bend, for spirits' sake!

Of course, Katara was fate-proof. Nothing like being a mere sister… And she simply refused to even think that Sokka's lousy luck was particularly fatal to anyone else. _That _would simply be too cruel. Not just to Sokka, but to those who got involved with him! Fate simply _couldn't _work that way. Could it?

The chandler's story of the barque's crew, involving a bout between two young soldiers against wreckage salvagers, certainly rang true enough, and she could almost see Sokka's role in it. But Sokka was not an easy guy to win over; witness his initial distrust of Aang and his long-held suspicion of even Haru. A Water Tribe boat in Fire Nation controlled waters was highly suspect. Could _Sokka_ have accepted so easily even another _Water Tribesman_ under such short notice?

It was certainly true that war made strange bedfellows. But, according to the chandler, this Tribesman they were talking about had been golden-eyed, fair-skinned, and in search of non-descript clothing. There was simply no way that _Sokka_ would be fooled into thinking a Fire Nation soldier had any right to a Water Tribe boat, come hell or high water!

This whole story was distracting them from their search.

Katara examined the boat. It was definitely of Southern design. Sokka would have recognized it instantly. Everything about the boat screamed of her village, from the moorings to the rigging to the stowing of gear in the various compartments along the gunwales. She'd have sworn she recognized the handiwork of the carving along the bow, personal touches along the hatches, except that she associated them with greying men a far cry from either of the grim-faced teenagers who'd argued with the chandler about his prices for non-Water Tribe clothing or current maps.

Toph shrugged, accepting her ignorance regarding sea-lore. But she was ready to swear to the merchant's veracity, honed as much by her ear for truth on the speaker's part as her earthbender's art of dissecting heart rate and electrical impulses within the bloodstream.

Katara didn't happen to speak to anyone at the tavern. If she had, it might have occurred to her that one day her brother's charm was bound to lead to more than blushes and an innocent kiss or two.

* * *

Iroh looked back on the tavern with some vague fondness, not entirely due to the diligence of the tap-girl's willingness to keep his tea-pot full or the surprising freshness of the fish on the menu.

The girl had been pretty – always a treat – and the grilled fish delightful, but the tea? Frankly, it was worse than insipid. Perhaps the leaves had been allowed to dry with a taint of mold?

Iroh shuddered.

Well. At least he'd known what to expect. He searched his memory for how many times An Dui had crossed the battle lines during his own tenure as a general, and chuckled briefly to note how little progress his brother had made in expanding the lines since he had "retired". But then, he was above such petty reflections, wasn't he?

* * *

During the period when Aang and Iroh roamed the market in the village square, Aang's attention wandered. Iroh had disappeared uphill in the local tavern, leaving Aang to his own devices. The market itself was minute and, frankly, Aang was not intrigued by shopping for either food-stuffs or clothing. He did, on the other hand, wonder just what it was about fabrics that drew not only Katara's eye but even Toph's curt attention. It was something about girls, he was sure of that. And Aang was old enough to start wondering about anything that interested girls, maybe even more so when that the actual object of that interest, okay, he'd admit it, left _him_ absolutely cold.

He wasn't an idiot. He knew that at some point girls pretty much stopped caring about anything really interesting and paid attention to stupid stuff. The thing was, it was at about this same time that what girls paid attention to started to _matter_, when it never had before, at least, any more than anything else.

Only an idiot would fail to make the connection. Again, Aang was far from an idiot. He was, in fact, someone unusually sensitive to simple truth – a reasonable response on the part of the Avatar to the conflicting pulls upon one's identity that the various forms of bending made upon the sensitive. That no one questioned the pull of air-bending or, for that matter, any of the other elements, upon his soul was a given. So why shouldn't he be equally sensitive to the tides of human nature pulling upon each other? Wasn't he supposed to have some exceptional form of understanding anyway? Well, there were certainly _stranger things_ about him.

Aang was barely thirteen years old. He already knew he loved Katara, and his hormones had only just begun to confuse his senses with a chemical infusion beyond his ken. Even so, he knew enough from his training as a monk to question the utility of his attachment to the Water Tribe girl.

It certainly didn't help to find his perceptions additionally confused by the much younger yet more forceful presence of his earth-bending master. Toph was his obvious peer, in age if nothing less. But in some strange sense he also saw in Toph's resilience a response to his own readiness to run. A readiness that had left him entrapped for a century, unable to respond when his people had needed him most. It set him up to revere Toph on a level he'd never anticipated, certainly _not _merely as his teacher.

In his internal confusion, he found himself retreating more to that monk's training even as his straining adolescence itched at him to explore the stirrings he felt elsewhere upon thoughts of the girls he looked to as masters and friends.

His early confidence in Sokka's wisdom and experience as an elder boy, although sometimes shaken by Sokka's occasional surliness and apparent self-absorption, had been boosted by his friend's easy confidence where girls were concerned. Where he might have disregarded this confidence as mere sham in anyone else, he'd noticed a tendency among young women in their travels to eye the Tribesman on more than one occasion, and the preference of Yue, the Northern princess, and the warrior Suki's blatant favoritism, simply couldn't be denied.

Among all the other reasons he wished Sokka was back in their midst, not the least was his desire to consult his friend as to how best to expand his relationships with the two most interesting girls of his young experience.

That one happened to be Sokka's sister complicated the equation a bit, but then, wasn't the Avatar supposed to be able to find the balance in all things? He'd worry about that later…

* * *

Although he felt terribly stupid about the whole affair, given the potential loss to mold, mildew and who knew what all of a good field of root vegetables, thanks to untimely flooding from the confusion among Jeong-Jeong's men as the creek backed up behind the rather impromptu dam, Sokka consoled himself with the knowledge that the sparring session between the Fire Prince and the renegade had ended in a draw.

Given what he regarded as Zuko's tendency to glare furiously at Sokka regardless of his most innocent of actions, Sokka felt relatively safe from retribution even as he felt the heat of the other's suspicious eyes upon him as the two of them joined a line of men working to haul stone away in clearing the dam.

Sokka quietly inserted a suggestion here and there as to the safest way to proceed ("no, pulling stones away from the downstream side of the dam willy-nilly could result in yet another landslide coupled with a sudden inundation of water, likely to drown all involved." _Nuts, didn't these soldiers ever deal with managing simple hydrology in the Fire Nation? _He_ knew how to smother a brush fire – couldn't _they_ create a spillway?_) Zuko himself strode assertively across the rock face itself to point out exactly which stones should be shifted to release pressure upstream immediately, lowering the impoundment before it spilled over the stream's banks.

Sokka stifled a sigh as he noted the group's willingness to follow Zuko's lead over his own remarks; it wasn't that he actually disagreed with Zuko. He had just been trying to stop a couple idiots from getting themselves killed, while Zuko had looked to actually solving the problem of the dam itself. After all, Sokka hadn't really wanted to draw attention to himself anyway. It wasn't as if he couldn't have figured out what to do.

He meandered his way on across the rocks towards Zuko, muttering under his breath. So he really wasn't expecting the sudden elbow in his ribs as he shifted his balance from one rock to another. And so the inevitable happened, as he lost his balance.

Sokka was just glad that Zuko had chosen to wait long enough for sufficient water to pond behind the dam to allow him a good dunking instead of a hard fall on the rocky creek bed itself. Somehow he wasn't sure such concerns had entered the prince's calculations.

He pulled himself back out of the water, having kicked away from Zuko and the men struggling to dislodge the rocks to make the spillway out of a healthy regard for not getting pulled into the flow likely to rush on downstream as those rocks gave way (_didn't I say that somebody could get drowned that way? I sure as hell didn't mean for that someone to mean _me_!)._ Sokka understood perfectly why Zuko had pushed him into the water; the prince didn't appreciate Sokka's interference in what he'd perceived as his own business. Fine. So now maybe they were even.

Except that Sokka's pride had been challenged. All those many months ago, Zuko had made a fool of Sokka in their first encounter. In all the subsequent times the two had met before their imprisonment it had been impossible to really determine which one had bested the other – after all, most of the time either Aang or Katara had actually confronted Zuko as much or more than Sokka had. Since then, there had been so much give and take that Sokka was truly confused as to where the balance lay between them. Sokka _liked_ to think he'd held the upper hand throughout, by pushing Zuko to romance Ling-Ling into helping them out of the prison; by providing the boat and provisions, thanks to his father's rescue effort just days after the prison break; by teaching Zuko sailing, sort of, and fishing; and restraining the Fire Prince from more flamboyant acts that would have put the Fire Nation onto their trail immediately… But then, it was _Zuko_ who'd actually convinced Ling-Ling to set them free, Zuko who'd ensured the fall of the prison; who'd fought Jet to a standstill and intimidated the wreckers into leaving them alone. And it was Zuko who'd earned them a welcome with Jeong-Jeong.

_I should leave, now, while no one thinks to care what I do. But shit. I don't want to leave it like this. I'm pretty sure Zuko's not gonna go after Aang again, and I'd swear he's figured out that we _all_ gotta find a way to live together now that _doesn't _involve the Fire Nation lording it over the rest of us. Is that enough? Dammit, I want him to appreciate us, the Water Tribe! Fuck it, I want him to admit he owes __me__. But then, I guess I'm just not sure he still does..._

* * *

_Jeong-Jeong lovers, forgive me for my vision of his backstory. There's loads more to it, but no room in this story to continue._


	25. Chapter 25

A/N: Well, I _SAID_ I was unreliable, didn't I? Still, I'm here to give you another chapter of "Passages", the alternate reality universe in which Zuko found himself condemned to death by his father without going to Ba Sing Se or half-turning Katara's head in the caves beneath the city. Oh yeah, in this reality Zuko's not finding redemption from love and sex but from friendship and a willingness to open his own mind to experience. Woah. Heady stuff! And everyone else gets a chance to learn a bit too. It's a fantasy, after all.

(Revised 3/12)

* * *

**Chapter 25**

"She was quite explicit in insisting that the 'catch of the day' had been provided by _Water Tribe_ hands," Iroh commented, forbearing to note the blush on the girl's cheeks as she made this assertion. It was, after all, inconsequential, since he was relatively certain it did not indicate her claim was a lie.

"_You_ said the boat was southern Water Tribe," Toph reminded Katara.

"Anyone can fish these days, and the boat _could_ have been stolen," Katara insisted. "The chandler insisted one of the sailors bore Fire Nation characteristics!"

"_And_ he said the other one was clearly Water Tribe," Aang reminded. "It _could _have been Sokka!"

"Can you _see_ Sokka traveling with Fire Nation?" It was Katara's strongest argument and she wasted no time presenting it. The truth was, she was afraid to hope.

"Well, no… " admitted Aang, defeated.

"Ah, an excellent point. Since I don't know the boy, I can't say I'm qualified to comment," submitted Iroh. Katara suspected this would not be the end of it.

Aang had developed a tendency to first pose questions to Iroh, which somewhat irritated both Katara and Toph. But it hadn't been long before each recognized sense in testing the experience of the eldest among them for answers. Still, given what must be assumed as a pro-Fire Nation bias on Iroh's part, in this case quizzing Iroh didn't serve to ease Katara's anxiety. She tensed as she waited for Aang's inevitable question.

"Then again, what are the odds of any _other_ Water Tribesman sailing in a Southern boat with someone from the Fire Nation?" Aang asked thoughtfully, not so much of Iroh but of the air itself. Katara was surprised to note that Aang seemed to be looking deep within himself for answers. Perhaps Aang _as Avatar_ was starting to grow again.

"Most Tribesmen are either fanatically loyal to the Tribes or abandon their colors altogether – like those Tribesmen we saw with the pirates. So for a single Tribesman to travel with someone from the Fire Nation in a distinctly Tribal boat…" Aang looked carefully at Katara. "It _was_ Sokka who turned to the Fire Nation outpost to save that village in Jet's forest. He's a _practical _kind of guy. Who is more likely than Sokka, out of all the Water Tribe, to find a reason to share space with someone from the Fire Nation? Katara?"

Her lower lip trembled as she met his gaze, the two of them sharing memories unknown to their companions.

Iroh held his peace, content to watch the pair work their own way through the probabilities.

"Do you honestly think it could be him?" Katara whispered, keeping a careful rein on her excitement.

"I honestly think we have no better leads," Aang reached out to clasp her hand in his. "And I swear, Katara, Sokka was here no more than a day ago. Everything tells me so!"

Toph conspicuously yawned, spreading her jaws as widely as possible for effect. "That's all very well. But where is he _now_?"

"Katara, child," Iroh asked gently, "Did the chandler say what happened to the crew of that boat? Does he know why it's still moored here?"

Katara hugged her elbows close to her chest, still attempting to consider this rather tenuous of possibilities as neutrally as possible. "Well, he doesn't really seem to know. He mumbled vaguely about them paying dock fees for another day, but he hasn't seen them since they took off for the tavern last night. He did say he'd given them leave to bunk down in that warehouse, but there's a guard outside it now." Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Toph interrupted before she could finish. "A guy and his pal go down for a kip and the next thing we know sentries are posted. Yep. Sounds like Sokka. All we've got to know is that the warehouse half-collapsed or was emptied in the middle of the night and we've got Sokka written all over it."

"My brother is not a thief."

"No, but he's unlucky as hell; I swear he's a walking disaster waiting to happen." Toph returned blandly. "And I mean that in the most complementary of ways. For a guy who can't bend Sokka manages to cause more trouble than a world of hogmonkeys. The amazing thing is that most of the time he manages to make trouble for someone else."

"No, no, Toph. You've got it all wrong. Sokka is the master of the moment! He sees things about to go horribly wrong and manages to make it all go against someone else. _That's_ his genius." Aang interjected.

"Yeah. Right. Mr. 'Big Idea'."

Katara spoke quietly before Aang and Toph could start arguing. "I don't know. Maybe trouble _does_ follow Sokka. But Aang's right – he does manage to find a way out, always! And much as I admire and love both of you, there is no one I'd rather have by my side than Sokka."

Iroh controlled his urge for a sudden intake of breath at her statement. He had often grieved over his own strained relationship with his brother, and wept bitter tears over the sight of perhaps an even harsher divide between Zuko and Azula. Still, he had not truly believed that siblings could achieve such affection and devotion, even in the Water Tribes.

Aang swallowed hard. "Okay then. Maybe we should check out this warehouse."

Toph grinned in her most unholy manner. "Ah yes. Do let's!"

* * *

A hot summer sun, splashing on the spill of water digging yet a new course along the bank of the stream, promised to alleviate the sudden flooding of the nearby field, already reduced to squashy mud beneath the feet of Jeong-Jeong's unofficial militia. A few soldiers remained digging channels to drain the lower spots, and an argument had arisen between two of the bordering cropholders – who also happened to hold low rank in said militia – as to the potential benefits of maintaining the pond behind Sokka's haphazard dam for irrigation purposes.

Sokka kept his own head down, secure in his ignorance of farming and local weather patterns that he had nothing of value to offer. Not to mention, he really didn't want anyone happening to notice that the stream bank had seemed perfectly secure before his sudden appearance on the scene…

Yep. Totally time for a very low profile. And while Prince Zuko obviously harbored his own suspicions he truly had no proof to back up any accusation. Sokka was reasonably certain that Zuko, having seen fit to douse him in the cold stream as payback for suspected interference in his affairs, would let well enough go by. A sort of alliance had been built up between them in prison – at that time against their mutual warders – that seemed to have survived even against the solidarity of Sokka's father, let alone Jet's freedom fighters or the wreckers. Sokka felt no real risk that Zuko would betray him to Jeong-Jeong.

Zuko and Sokka had both retreated from the sun's heat shortly after the dam had been breached sufficiently to allow a solid flow downstream. Judging by the way it filled the lower banks it seemed likely to not only completely drain the field shortly but also reduce the pond behind it to the original banks fairly quickly. Thus the local farmers' arguments.

"You did notice that while those idiots brought our rucksacks they didn't bring along our purchases? I've had two good duckings in the water since yesterday and trust me! I've _yet_ to thoroughly dry out from either time, and if I start growing mold _you _are going to pay. Somehow, I swear it, I'll find a way for you to pay!" Sokka was twisting the lower part of his tunic to wring out some of the water. There was a perfunctory element to his complaining; he'd spent literally years getting soaked by Katara's "experiments" with water-bending. If it struck him as ironic that hanging out with a fire-bender instead _still_ resulted in him getting soaked, he didn't mention it.

Zuko stretched indolently beneath a tree, finding himself yet again oddly content in ways he couldn't remember feeling before. He knew some of it resulted from being back well within Fire Nation culture. But his years shipboard had been replete with his homeland's traditions, and he'd never felt so much at ease there. Even secure in his uncle's gentle approval.

He didn't want to question it, but he was far too honest and, frankly, ambitious, to let it rest. Sokka couldn't hold the answers to his questions, and so he resented his current commentary. Besides, he'd already figured out that Sokka was talking purely for the sake of breaking the silence. The guy simply didn't get it that sometimes silence said as much as speech.

Zuko shrugged. Then again, for someone as clever with words as Sokka could be, maybe that wasn't so surprising.

This was _not_ one of those times, however. Still, a devil seemed provoked to respond.

"Sokka, you should have spoken up earlier," He reached out an arm to grasp Sokka's sleeve, still sopping from his dousing in the stream. Steam immediately started rising from the fabric, and Sokka squirmed uncomfortably in the heat.

"Shit! You – damn it! Ouch!" Sokka pulled away with a jerk. Scowling, he kicked a small cloud of dust at Zuko's legs.

Zuko laughed, content.

Sokka stripped off his tunic, muttering under his breath about "fuckin' firebenders" as he also pulled off his boots, shaking out the excess water. He did not attempt to threaten Zuko any further, draping his shed clothing on branches of sufficient strength. It didn't take him long to find repose beneath the sun's welcome rays.

After all, he'd been awakened much earlier than he'd wished, and after a fairly late night. Zuko had commented scathingly more than once on Sokka's tendency to sleep at every opportunity. Sokka was sure the other boy was merely jealous, and reminded Zuko that he was perfectly capable of moving, and moving quickly, when he had to. Sleep was a good thing. It rejuvenated his mind and soul as well as his body, and he often thought that most of his best insights actually occurred to him in his sleep.

* * *

Jeong-Jeong took this moment to approach Zuko, nodding at his dozing companion. "You were sent to find the Avatar, and instead you've attached yourself to a surrogate."

Zuko snorted. "I found the Avatar, time and again. I just never managed to lay my hands on him long enough to bring him home. As for Sokka," here he shrugged, uncertain how much to say, "He's no surrogate. And trust me, if he actually thought anyone would mistake him for such he'd disabuse them in a hurry."

"Ah, then. The fool has learned his place?"

Now Zuko bristled, "Sokka's no fool. He may act like one most of the time, but you'd be kidding yourself to underestimate him. I won't make that mistake again. And as for knowing his place? Anything but! Then again… I'm not really sure any more just what his place actually is either."

"So, you escaped the Fire Nation prison together. That does not explain why you still travel together," Jeong-Jeong probed. He had his own theories, but he was curious to see how the prince would answer.

"Inertia, maybe. It's easier traveling together than alone. And I don't have any particular destination."

"But of course, _he_ does," Jeong-Jeong wondered how much the prince was hiding. "Will you follow him to the Avatar? And if he's foolish enough to lead you to him, what will you do then?"

Now Zuko grimaced. "Sokka's not afraid of me, so he may very well take me to Aang. I don't know. But actually, I was thinking about asking if I could stay with you."

Zuko found himself strangely constrained about revealing all he'd learned and thought about his fellow ex-prisoner. Despite his interest in learning all he could from Jeong-Jeong, he suddenly experienced a concern about being too free with information regarding his Water Tribe companion, who also happened to be a close associate of the Avatar.

* * *

Jeong-Jeong was surprised. He had assumed the prince was engaged in attempting to exploit Sokka's gullibility with the ultimate intent to betray him. Whatever high-minded idealism the boy had ever had should have been burned out of him by his humiliation and exile. The son of Ozai should have been quite capable of the kind of deceit and ambition that would lead to falsely befriending one of the Avatar's companions. It would be a brilliant ploy to effectuate a capture.

And yet, everything he had seen led him to believe there was a genuine connection between Prince Zuko and Sokka. They squabbled almost like siblings, and clearly the Water Tribe boy exhibited protectiveness for the prince. Zuko seemed to resent others' slighting remarks regarding Sokka. And the fact that he used the Avatar's name rather than his title suggested he saw that particular entity more as the child he was than the threat the Fire Lord feared.

At the same time, there was no question the young man before him was embittered. Well, no wonder given the series of rejections he'd suffered from family and home. Perhaps Jeong-Jeong should have foreseen Zuko's apparent attachment to his father's enemies as genuine.

So how could he then interpret Zuko's request to join Jeong-Jeong's ranks? Zuko's initial reaction on recognizing him had been hostility and outrage over what he perceived as the abandonment of his countrymen. Clearly then, since Zuko's bitterness was not focused on his homeland it must merely involve his family. Perhaps, it was focused only on the Fire Lord himself. Add to the mix some signs of nascent sympathy for the Avatar and, at least, the Water Tribesman's cause, _perhaps_ it was safe to say the Fire Lord's aims were no longer Zuko's aims as well. Hmm. From Ozai's perspective perhaps he had been wise after all to condemn his son to death.

When he first left the Fire Lord's service, Jeong-Jeong feared he would also find himself leaving his heritage behind as well. But the Earth Kingdom was full of enclaves of Fire Nation culture – the natural result of 100 years of by-and-large successful conquest – of more or less fidelity to the family of the Fire Lord. Jeong-Jeong's military history of allegiance almost required that he start out as a hermit; a hermit may live according to the precepts he chooses. But of course, that hadn't lasted long, as over time somehow soldiers with similar doubts had found him. In a surprisingly short period, he'd found himself the leader of a quasi-military group devoted to ancient Fire Nation ideals, which decidedly did not include conquest of the rest of the world. But he had been the only fire-bender among them.

The Fire Prince may not have abandoned the Fire Nation, _per se_, but he had almost certainly turned his back on the Fire Lord's dictates. It was obvious that Prince Zuko found solace in this environment, _Jeong-Jeong's_ environment. Equally obvious that Zuko had accepted Jeong-Jeong's own rejection of his family's aims.

Jeong-Jeong had not wanted to force Zuko to confront this reality – he wasn't entirely sure of Zuko, after all, but time was running out. And opportunities like this falling into the Deserter's hand, ah, yes, these were few and far between.

It would seem that the "fragile" and "unstable" Fire Prince could handle this, and much more without falling apart. Jeong-Jeong allowed himself to seriously consider a challenge to the conceded scion of Ozai in the face of what he had found in the discredited Fire Prince.

It was the wildest of far shots. After all, despite her gender, Azula had proved herself an ample heir to Ozai, fully potential of overcoming all previous errors in conquering the Earth Kingdom and any future enemy. And Ozai had yet to discourage her.

If one believed in destiny, it would seem apparent that Azula was the obvious and eventual ruler of the world.

Jeong-Jeong considered carefully. He'd spent time with both crown prince Iroh and his successor Fire Lord Ozai. Given his own personal experiences, he no longer believed in the Fire Nation's inherent supremacy. So what could he believe in?

Ozai was the epitome of Fire Nation supremacy. He was the personage of Fire Nation perfection; every physical proportion perfect, every demonstration of power superlative; evidence of war-craft superb and diplomacy complete. If the other nations found him somehow lacking, well, that was their fault…

In retrospect, Ozai's inability to compensate for military failings had raised questions in the men of Jeong-Jeong's stature, even as they grieved for their compatriots' failures.

This failure was a small thing, but it could potentially pave the way to the Fire Lord's defeat. It was, of course, unlikely that such a point should ever be raised in the offense against the Fire Lord. Unless, of course, other elements were also weighed in the balance. Such as a rightful heir in rebellion, with the Avatar's support.

It was also obvious that a commander who had been in Jeong-Jeong's position would have recognized as much. Given his unique position of having hosted the Avatar – and his companions, it remained to be seen as to whether the lord commander would surrender such information.

It would, after all, define his allegiance in what all must see as the coming confrontation.


	26. Chapter 26

_A/N: I'm guessing I'm not the only one at least a teensy bit disappointed in Season 3. Which is not to say it hasn't been "fun" overall. It just hasn't measured up to elder fandom's expectations. Since it wasn't written for us, we should, perhaps, shut our traps. Actually, that makes a lot of sense to me. After all, isn't that what fanfiction is all about? Expressing your desires for a particular character/series to go that doesn't in fact happen? Well, duh._

_That said, I've been impressed by the number of author and story alerts I've gotten over the last month, all of which reminded me that it was time to update my stories. Perhaps this chapter feels short, given earlier history. But it worked nicely for me._

Revised 3/12

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't claim it, am thereby exempt from legal action.

Chapter 26

Sokka felt that damned itch, stretching from shoulder to groin, that suggested he was missing something important because he was too blamed lazy or stupid to be paying attention. It was a feeling he'd accepted long before he'd entered puberty, before even making a distinction between awareness of outside stimulus and these more _internal_ feelings, something he'd never really admitted to anyone.

And, admittedly, there were times he'd ignored the itch, rolling over after giving himself a good scratch and a stretch and ignoring everything else.

For the child that was Sokka, most of the time it really hadn't seemed to matter that he had ignored the itch. Still, for the burgeoning consciousness that was Sokka _then_, the question of costs was largely irrelevant. Sokka's consciousness _now_ did not feel anywhere near so cavalier.

Even so, mindful spirits probably bemoaned the fate of the world at that point. The Avatar – idiot child of unkown parentage more prone to start than to stand. Decades upon decades later, the bending masters were intent upon their own culturally-circumscribed worlds and distinguishing themselves from one another…

And where did that leave everyone else, anyway?

Sokka'd been of such a mindframe on a mid-summer's day, only to be confronted, prepubescent that he was then, with a sword at his neck while his beloved mother was dragged into the sleeping chamber by a pair of helmeted figures, pleading and struggling in ways he desperately did _not_ want to remember. His sister, a girl-child barely recognizable as such – and later he'd thanked the spirits for as much – had been tossed into his sleeping alcove with as much compunction as a puppy, the two of them warned to keep silent on their lives….

Sokka had clutched Katara's head to his chest fervently then, blinding her to the visions forced upon his own eyes. He'd never counted the times bile had risen in his throat, swallowing hard to keep his voice clear to murmur comforting phrases as she sobbed in terror, his own eyes transfixed on the spectacle before him. And there were some things that, despite his being the son of a story-teller, never did meet the light of day.

It was more than a decade later before Sokka could loose those particular visions to anyone else. And several years more before he could speak as much to Zuko. By then, the older boy didn't need Sokka's pro-forma forgiveness.

By then_, that_ was largely the point. And _that_, of course, was another time, some years before our current story.

* * *

It was, however, the _same_ kind of itch crawling along his body on another midsummer's day. This time, however, as he awoke from a doze beneath the tree to observe Prince Zuko and Jeong-Jeong conversing quietly some few feet away, he could see no particular reason why his intuition might be on alert.

Zuko had shown he was reasonably comfortable with Jeong-Jeong, and Sokka had not been blind to the blandishments between the two regarding forming some kind of alliance. Given his previous experience with Jeong-Jeong this probably was not a bad thing, from his own perspective. Sokka did not much wonder what _Zuko's _perspective might have been. He liked to hope that Zuko had _evolved_ to something near his own plane of perception. Or, at least, a good few rungs above worrying about Fire Nation dominance and pleasing his father at any cost.

Sokka was arrogant that way.

And the truth was he longed to return to his friends, longed to rest in the curve of Katara's embrace while she hounded him for being an idiot about getting caught in the first place. Zuko didn't understand – perhaps couldn't understand given his own family situation – but nothing was really more important than the connection between family.

He had begun to suspect that, despite all efforts otherwise, his appreciation for and gratitude to Zuko had warmed into something very like friendship on his part. And he remembered Aang's words about Fire Nation friends and their closeness.

But this was Prince Zuko he was thinking about. It was his highness's sense of honor that had bound them together thus far, he knew. So again he chose to ignore his intuition's twitchiness.

"So, you're leaving?" Zuko kept his voice even, as if this were the most logical progression of moves on the game board, as if he'd foreseen it all along. He made sure that there was nothing to suggest he'd expected anything otherwise in the tone of his voice. Neutrality was something he understood, even if it was not something he'd ever managed to convey. This time he strove to infuse it into every fiber of his being when Sokka suggested that it was, perhaps, time for him to move on alone.

"Yeah, well, it's not like there's any reason I should hang around. I mean, I've got places to go, people to see…" Sokka tossed his bangs back over his head, having yet to fully secure them again after getting dumped in the stream by Zuko. "Don't guess you got any problems with that, right Master Jeong-Jeong?"

The white-haired soldier shook his head briefly, interested to see it had been the Tribesman who had been first to push the issue after all.

"Right. Well then, you know, maybe we should talk about this." Zuko shifted uncomfortably, thinking that perhaps he was more fully aware of what "this" meant than Sokka.

And that, he realized, would be a first. No, it wasn't likely that Sokka hadn't already processed through the mills of his mind all the possible permutations of their parting. That he'd opted to do so anyway made the decision easier for Zuko, in some ways. Oddly enough, it still bothered him.

"Yeah, about that. I mean, I wouldn't just abandon you flat, but with Jeong-Jeong here you've probably got a lot better chance of finding your uncle than you would with me, right?" Sokka spoke quickly, wanting to get over the hurdles of goodbye as quickly as possible. Things had changed even since they'd left the prison together little more than a week ago. They had become comrades, hadn't they?

Zuko hesitated, catching the master fire-bender's eye. He hadn't actually gotten an answer to his own similar query just minutes ago. Nor had he actually voiced his desire to find Iroh. _Ah, thank you, Sokka, for boxing me in so neatly. Did you really mean to define my options so closely?_

"Doesn't matter. I think you've gotten me as far as I needed you to anyway," he kept his own voice clipped. "What was it your father said? May we not meet again on the field of conflict…"

"Except, perhaps, as allies?"

"At least, not as enemies."

Again, blue eyes met gold. Sunlight glancing off ice cliffs. After a long moment, both spoke at once…

"Mind that shoulder of yours – I'd hate to think I wasted my efforts."

"I'll bet you could weasel your way into filling your rucksack before you go…"

Sokka offered a lopsided grin to Zuko's smirk

Both found themselves chuckling as they turned to Jeong-Jeong. It was Zuko's turn to speak. "So Master. Will you allow one to go where he wills, knowing that he means to end the Fire Nation's dominion? And will you allow the other to stay, knowing he seeks a road to greater Fire Nation glory, even if it means the fall of the current Fire Lord?"

Jeong-Jeong's wasn't the only breath to be drawn in as a hiss on these words.

* * *

The warehouse had proven to be at least as intriguing as the Water Tribe boat moored at the pier. Mostly because it was empty, and yet workmen were assiduously mending a large hole in the rear wall as if it held all the riches of the Earth Kingdom. Toph kicked at the deck of the pier outside the warehouse's front door in frustration.

"I can't get squat from this stupid boardwalk, except that the place is empty as an Old Kingdom tomb. Don't know about the rest of you though, but I smell chicken feathers and chicken poo. That and smoke, not just a campfire, but from water pipes at least. This place is used as a sporting venue." She should know. Earthbending tournaments often took place in spaces shared with other, less savory altercations.

Sokka's guess on cock-fighting hadn't been off the mark after all.

Aang's nose twitched. As the air-bender, he probably should have picked it up first, but he wasn't surprised that Toph's nose was as sharp as her other senses, all compensating for her missing vision.

"That doesn't explain the need for repairs to that back wall," Katara said, elbowing her way past the guard hired by the chandler with the confidence of a master waterbender on what might be called home turf. "Iroh, am I wrong or does the debris they're carting away look charred?"

"Charred with precision, since you ask, my dear girl." He answered with a smile. "I couldn't have done better myself."

"Okay. So we're already assuming that Sokka's traveling with someone from the Fire Nation. Why shouldn't that person be a fire-bender?" Aang asked, leading the others back out the door and around the building to the alley where he could perform his Avatar-connectedness routine again. He fully expected as clear of a response as that which had led Katara, Sokka and him to Appa and Momo in the swamp all those months ago.

"Now see, this is where things completely stop making sense," Katara protested. "Okay, Sokka _might_ just trust someone from the Fire Nation if they'd been prisoners together. But would he trust that same person if he found them on a Water Tribe boat? Not likely! And if they were prisoners together, how'd they get the boat? As for a fire-bender? You know how hard it was for Sokka to trust bending at all, let alone _fire-_bending."

She turned morose eyes upon Aang. "I swear, Aang, if you hadn't sensed him close by, I simply could not believe this, any of it!"

Aang gave a cheeky grin. "Ah, c'mon, Katara! You're looking at it all wrong. Only Sokka could possibly hook up a Water Tribe boat _and_ a fire-bender together. And when the time comes, it will make sense that only Sokka would have found reason to leave the warehouse by a backdoor made by fire-bending."

"I know this sounds really scary," Toph said as she followed. "But he actually makes a lot of sense putting it like that."

"I know," Katara bemoaned. "The more absurd it sounds the more likely it appears that any of us would be involved. And Sokka's the worst of all because the way he thinks he would actually be able to see all this falling together and accept it. Oh, he claims to be the scientist and pessimist among us, but who is the one who comes up with the most hare-brained schemes?"

"Um. Well, yeah, it's Sokka." Aang admitted. "But usually it's because we can't think of anything else. Katara, _any_ of us can come up with the logical and the obvious solutions. We all know it takes Sokka's odd genius to find ways out of the impossible. Does it really matter?"

Iroh had, as usual, followed along, listening to these children chatter as they worked their way along the trail much as he had observed his nephew, all those months ago, work his way through the logic of following their own trail. It amused him, mildly, to find that many of their escapes had been through happenstance rather than deliberate intent, while others had verged on brilliance worthy of the White Lotus Society. As one of the few bending members of that group, it did not altogether surprise him that these schemes inevitably had their genesis in the mind of the lone non-bender among them.

It wasn't that bending lacked genius. Not at all. It was patently obvious that Katara and Toph before him were geniuses in their own bending disciplines, just as Iroh himself was a fire-bender extraordinaire. That he was also strategically brilliant had been made apparent during his military career, and there were many who wondered how that genius could have been extinguished by the death of his son at Ba Sing Se.

Iroh never saw fit to correct history's perception. Should history need to remember him, enough would be found in the Society's chronicles. In the meantime, he had other concerns.

* * *

The young Avatar knelt on one knee as he brought his hand to the earth, eyes closed and face set. Mere seconds passed before his eyes opened and his expression expressed triumph.

"I've found him! He's very close!" Then Aang's eyes clouded a bit. "His – I don't know how better to describe it than, his _signature_ – is all confused with another image, and that just doesn't make sense."

Toph harrumphed. "Not so strange. It's probably this fire-bender he's been traveling with. Their signals are all confused cause they've been close together so long." She patted Aang on the shoulder consolingly. "You're not blind, so it makes sense that your perception wouldn't be as sharp as mine."

"Yeah. Right." Aang tried to follow her logic, and failed miserably, since he was following a trail beyond Toph's senses, blind or otherwise. It certainly didn't seem worth arguing. And she was probably right as to the identity that had merged with Sokka's.

"The circus freak talked about 'auras'," Katara mused aloud. "Do you suppose there was some credence to that?"

"Bullshit." Said Toph. "Aura talk is all about shiny and colorful projections people have around themselves. If that was real, why would only wackos be able to see it?"

Aang kept silent. He was almost ready to swear he could see auras, but maybe that was an Avatar thing, which wouldn't detract from Toph's thesis. Avatar stuff was all weird anyway. In any case, he saw no point in pushing yet another sense the Avatar had over everyone else, especially one that he held over Toph. And he certainly didn't want to be considered a 'wacko'.

"Haven't we strayed from our objective" Iroh asked placidly. "Aang, to where do we go from here?"


	27. Chapter 27

_A/N. I finally saw the Day of Black Sun episode. From a Sokkafan's perspective, this was a love of an episode. From the perspective of the full storyline, it was a tour de force. Much better than the Season 2 ender, if you ask me (but you gots to ask in private – I don't rant in public). Now, all of you who have read this from the beginning postings, you know I've developed my ideas on these characters on my own. So you must enjoy as much as I do the strong hints at which my characters foreshadow those of the actual series. Isn't it lovely when character development follows logic and experience?_

_That said. Thank you, my friends, for you patience with this stupid fic. I certainly never intended the writing of it to extend over a year. My only excuse, real life. Yeah, you've heard it before. And if it isn't true for you as well, all I can say is shame on you! _

Chapter 27

Sokka's lips were twitching and, when Zuko turned to face him, it was fairly apparent that the Water Tribe boy was caught trying to decide between smugly smirking or confusedly glowering. Jeong-Jeong's face had assumed a remote sternness, while Zuko himself was aiming for judicious balance. As the smirk gained ascendancy as far as Sokka's features were concerned, balance turned into grumpiness.

"Well, make up your mind and say something," he grunted. "I've never known you to hold your tongue before so why start now?"

"I'm just amazed, that's all," Sokka said, arms crossing before him as he brought up one index finger to tap against his own cheek in mock contemplation. "It _sounded_ like you've finally made up your mind about something, but when I examine that statement closely it's still damned full of ambiguity. Did all those lessons in diplomacy include how to make blowing smoke look like actual fire? Just what did you mean by that, _exactly_?"

Jeong-Jeong was inclined to wonder the same thing, although he had been prepared to take the prince's words at face value. As he considered the Tribesman's challenge he realized that a more subtle brain was at work than the boyish features revealed.

Zuko rolled his eyes, reminding himself of why he sometimes still hated Sokka. He'd been rather proud of his remark to the former admiral. It had a sense of import and cadence, eloquence with a nice note of humility. And it had been, he thought, a nicely timed statement of intent. Sort of. Leave it to Sokka to realize that it still left most of his options pretty open, including that of reconciling with his father if it could all somehow prove to be some horrible mistake in communications or understanding. That Sokka should have chosen to expose that semantic back door in front of Jeong-Jeong, the deserter who obviously had turned his own back finally and inexorably on the Fire Lord, only made it more insufferable.

But then, he supposed he _had_ asked for it, hadn't he?

"It is a devious mind that looks for hidden layers in other's words." It was, admittedly, a feeble attempt, but Zuko had gotten into the habit of trying to distract Sokka with an attack rather than attempt to justify himself. It had yet to succeed but there was always a first time.

Sokka shrugged. "I'm a survivor, Zuko. That means looking for hidden layers in everything." His expression settled back into cockiness, as it had back in their early prison days when he had whiled away the time by relentlessly probing away at Zuko's beliefs and desires. "So. Are you gonna answer or hide behind rhetoric?"

Guess he'd have to keep waiting for that first time.

"Fine. I meant exactly what I said. No matter what your goals are regarding defeating the Fire Nation, _I_ want to see it take its proper place as the pride and envy of the world. I would _like_ to believe my father wants that also." _But if he doesn't…_ Although the unfinished sentence went unsaid, he was confident that both his listeners heard it anyway. More importantly, he thought maybe he had succeeded in reminding Jeong-Jeong where his loyalties lay.

"Dumbass. How many times have we gone over this? As long as the Fire Nation isn't on anyone else's back I don't give a damn what you do." Sokka's jaw began to jut mulishly. "And a man who doesn't worry about maybe blinding his kid, let alone signing off on his execution notice, doesn't strike me as anyone likely to care shit about what the rest of the world thinks as long as _he_ gets his own way."

"Sokka, I thought we'd agreed not to comment on each other's families?" Zuko said quietly. He was walking a very fine balance here, and he truly did not appreciate Sokka's prodding him to fall off the fence to one side or another.

Jeong-Jeong watched as the two young men eyed one another. This was different from the blowup over the tea table. That had been loud and, he saw now, an argument over realities that both boys could view fairly objectively, despite strongly held opinions. They could talk as representatives of their different countries without personal animus despite the evidence of passion. Here, though, the subject was very personal indeed. Jeong-Jeong wondered at the Tribesman's temerity in pushing into what must be forbidden territory even as he considered the prince's obvious forbearance in granting him a warning rather than immediately blasting him. What an extraordinary relationship they had forged!

Sokka's jaw did not recede. "Now see, the difference here is that _my_ sister had every reason to kill you and didn't. My father granted you safe conduct on nothing more than my word. Can you say as much about either _your_ father or sister?" His voice grew very soft indeed. "And I'm not talking about what they wanted to do to me, Zuko, but what they were prepared to do to _you_."

"Damn you, Sokka."

Sokka's expression shifted mercurially, "Mind you, I didn't necessarily agree with Katara at the time, and I was obviously off my head when I told Dad you were harmless, but I guess we all got to live with our mistakes." He bounced the heel of his hand off his forehead as if in self-remonstrance, the easy grin back on his face.

Zuko bit the inside of his cheek, ruefully grateful at Sokka's return to insolence. It was obvious to him that Sokka had backed off his earlier probe of Zuko's true intentions. Perhaps the other boy had sensed Zuko's interest in getting some better idea of Jeong-Jeong's agenda before he would voice any commitment beyond that of national loyalty. And perhaps Sokka truly understood how hard it was to let go of childish dreams.

"Well, actually sometimes we have to die with our mistakes," he said dryly in response, glancing over at their host. "But I don't guess Master Jeong-Jeong will be making such judgments today. As for me, well, you'll have to trust to time itself to see just how costly it is to make mistakes regarding letting me live."

"Ya think?" Sokka snorted. "I told ya, Zuko, I'm a survivor. The day I decide I made any mistakes regarding you, you'll know it."

"Don't let anyone else kill you, Sokka. Remember we have a deal. The day you pursue that threat to gut me is the day I roast your ass."

All tension had disappeared between them, and Jeong-Jeong noticed that Zuko had never actually answered Sokka's question regarding any putative rebellion against the Fire Lord. Had the Fire Prince managed to convince or distract the other boy so easily, or had the Tribesman dropped the question for reasons of his own?

Jeong-Jeong wished he had paid more attention to him during their first meeting. But, he thought to himself, given the stresses of attempting to teach the Avatar fire-bending and coming into contact again with a water-bender from the South, surely he could be forgiven for overlooking the potential talents of an apparent fool. And, of course, he reminded himself, that should have been his first clue. _Anyone_ accompanying the Avatar should be given extra consideration.

-------------------------------

"You mentioned this odd element confusing itself with Sokka's the last time you thought you'd found him," Katara ventured. "But the last time you said there was something also kind of familiar about it, didn't you?"

They were walking along a trail that meandered between scattered fields and frequent copses of trees, hardwood interspersed with fruit suggesting a mixed economy. They were as oblivious to this as Sokka and Zuko had been so many hours earlier upon that trail.

More time had been lost arguing the merits of simply flying in on Appa and swooping Sokka up from whatever situation he was in and sneaking up on foot to reconnoiter first before Iroh suggested they continue the argument on the road. The trail was too narrow for Appa but they still had the bison whistle. While Appa staked out the territory from far overhead with Momo the humans could plan their approach and continue to stretch their legs.

Toph was in no hurry to return to the saddle, so she found this an ideal compromise. Since the trail followed a streambed, allowing Katara ample opportunities to stretch her bending muscles as well, she swallowed her own sense of impatience.

"I don't know how to explain it, and I could easily be wrong," Aang said apologetically. "I mean, maybe it's cause I'm used to Iroh now, and fire-bending is not so alien anymore. Maybe that's what I meant by it seeming familiar, if Sokka's traveling with a fire-bender or someone from the Fire Nation." He sounded doubtful. But he didn't want to make a big deal about that sense of familiarity. Actually, it did have a strong flavor of Iroh, something sad and a bit wistful, but strong and somehow laden by some great weight. On the other hand, it totally lacked Iroh's sense of serenity and playfulness. No, Aang was sure that any hints of humor were wholly reflected by Sokka. His perceptions of his immediate companions must be bleeding into his recognition of his connection to his friend. The strong sense of empathy coloring the core he identified as Sokka was almost certainly borrowed from Katara rather than any attribute of her brother. And he was using what he knew of Iroh to interpret the sensations coming from Sokka's Fire Nation companion. Yes. That made perfect sense, actually. After all, Sokka was not particularly empathetic, as far as Aang's experience went. Rather, he had seemed remarkably obtuse, given his obvious intelligence.

"I don't know, maybe your place as the bridge between the worlds means you're sensing Yue's spirit watching over Sokka," Katara suggested. "That would explain its familiarity, and it would be nice to think about, wouldn't it?"

"Who's Yue?" Toph asked. "I thought Sokka was all tight with the Earth Kingdom warrior? And what do you mean 'watching over'? You mean somebody _dead_?"

"The Northern Watertribe princess? The one who gave her life to the moon spirit? Yes, I'd noticed she seemed rather partial to your brother." Iroh said thoughtfully. "But who's this Earth Kingdom warrior Toph speaks of?"

"Oh, Suki is a girl we met on Kioshi Island. She kicked his butt almost as much as Toph does. Sokka can be a bit of a charmer, actually, though don't ever tell him I admitted it. Girls often like him, but I don't think he always sees it. I mean, to hear him talk he's all about the girls, but then when he's actually interested he gets all tongue-tied and stupid," Katara shrugged. "I think he really does care for Suki though, and he definitely still gets choked up about Yue."

The thought that Sokka had had a girlfriend die made Toph distinctly uncomfortable. It brought the reality of the war home to her in a way their frequent skirmishes and escapades had not. "I don't think he's so charming. And he's dense as a post as to what others think, that's obvious. Also, he's a lazy ass who thinks he can boss us around just cause he's older. So maybe he's smart, and sometimes pretty funny, and he can be nice when he's not being an idiot…" sh mumbled. "The best thing about him is that he can never remember that I'm blind, and that he doesn't treat me like a little kid. Much."

"No, but Katara's right," Aang said somewhat glumly. "Sokka is good with girls."

"Indeed," Iroh stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Truly a gifted young man, then."

He turned to the Avatar, whose shoulders had noticeably begun to slump as they walked. "Your own gifts with people are quite prodigious, Aang. Even without your bending prowess I believe you would have a remarkable future."

"Who, me?" Aang was surprised. He knew he was supposed to bring peace and wisdom to the world in his role as Avatar, but frankly he found the whole element-bending aspect far more appealing and much easier to contemplate. Though, not so much the fighting part…

"Of course, Aang. Iroh's right," Katara spoke confidently. "From the first time I met you I've known that you were something special. And that's when you were 'just' an airbender! You bring hope to people because of who you are, not just what you are."

"Huh," Toph snorted. "Good thing, too, cause you'll never be as good an earthbender as I am. If you didn't have that personality thing going for you this mission of yours would be in tough shape."

Iroh smiled. It was entirely like Toph to be unable to give a complement without hiding it in an insult. Still, she had warmed considerably in her time with Aang and his friends.

"I believe there is much more to being the Avatar that any of us realize. Speaking of things we may not be aware of, I rather think we've been followed ever since we left the town," he said genially. "Of course, I could be wrong, but it strikes me as a bit strange that there has been at least one person within eye-shot since we left the warehouse and yet no one has actually caught up with us or passed us by either way."

"What?" Aang and Katara chorused, both looking around anxiously. "Are you saying we've lost the advantage of surprise?" Aang finished.

"Interesting," Toph said. "I noticed that we were being followed when we first left town, but they left the road fairly early on and disappeared into a farm building, I _thought_. Sure, there was always someone around, but they were different people and I thought they were mostly just farm workers." One of the things she liked about hanging out with Iroh was the opportunity to learn things from him. It was amazing how many different things he knew and was willing to share if you only showed interest.

"Yes, and some of them probably are. But shortly after that fellow went into the barn another guy came out with a hoe and headed off towards a field further along the way where several others were working. Not long after we were well past that field one of those workers then moved on as well. Did you notice how no one has joined us on this path?"

"Look, it's all very well for you two to show off how much more aware you are than we but Aang's question still needs addressing. The point of walking was to be able to check things out without anyone knowing we're there, wasn't it?" Katara asked. In his own way, Iroh could be as annoying as Sokka. The main difference being that Iroh's experience actually lent more authority to his pronouncements. Sokka needed to explain his judgment calls but they were all pretty ready to trust Iroh by now. Why the man still felt compelled to explain boggled her mind. Well, maybe he didn't realize how much they trusted him.

"Not so much so no one would know we're there," Iroh corrected gently. "Rather, it was more an exercise is obfuscation."

"Say what?" Toph asked. "Hey, I can't read! Why the hell would I know what 'obsutation' means?"

"'Obfuscation'," Iroh repeated. "The art of hiding one's intentions. And please, let's all just continue walking along."

"Oh. Being sneaky. That I get, - why didn't you say so first time around?"

"Yeah. We all know sneaky. So how is openly walking into what may be a trap being sneaky?" Aang wanted to know.

"Well, first of all, those who are observing us do not necessarily know we are seeking young Sokka. The presence of a sky bison among us probably indicated your identity, Aang, but that was inevitable from the moment we landed. Having him leave still gives us an advantage since they can have no idea when or if he will return. Our watchers do not know our mission, nor are they aware that we know we are being observed." Iroh kept his tone calm and relaxed. "It may not be the advantage we had hoped for, but it is still quite significant."

"Aah. That's why you were called the 'dragon of the west'," Toph nodded wisely. "You're good at sizing up changing conditions."

"Well, I try not to let the world get ahead of me," Iroh bowed faintly to Toph, sure she would perceive his motion. "But no, that is not how I earned my title."

"Never mind that," said Katara grimly. "What do we do now?

----------------------------------

"And please let Osuwa know if there is anything you need," the manager bowed deeply before there most recent guest.

The old man's unassuming manner and relatively simple garb did not, in Osuwa's estimation, warrant the profuse unctuousness of his immediate superior. The old fart had only rented one lousy room and, while he'd put no end date on the reservation, he'd also put no end date. He could check out tomorrow, for spirit's sake!

Why all the fuss? Still, Shumo was no idiot, in Osuwa's experience, and maybe at least there were good tips involved. So he swallowed his irritation and made a concerted effort to show the geezer around the various amenities the Springs had to offer. Besiding, of course, the springs themselves. The towel room, the masseuse (would such a white-hair even be interested in the oh-so-accommodating tea-ladies?), the weight room (clearly a pass), and what Shumo liked to refer to as the lounge. Osuwa thought the emphasis on strong drink over the meager food menu qualified the room as a bar, but no one paid him in marketing. Still, maybe the geezer was a drinker, so he included it in the tour.

"Ah, what a lovely pai sho board. Such brilliant colors and bold symbology. It is new, yes?" The newly registered guest expressed something beyond mild appreciation for the first time.

"Of course. You couldn't even read the positions on the old board anymore," Osuwa commented, gathering quickly the old man's enthusiasm for the game and guessing that displaying an institutional devotion to an old man's interest would bode well for his own pocket, if not the resort's. "It's amazing. Every night the pai sho games get pretty heated and furious around here. Of course, there's another board on hand, an older one with the lines still legible, that we have to haul out now and then."

"Indeed? I would be interested in seeing the design of tiles you provide to your players who don't bring their own. Such vibrant colors and striking designs…"

"Yes, well, it is an old game, and one wouldn't want to offend by straying too far from tradition, but we do have some lovely colors," his mind swam frantically, clearly recognizing an opportunity.

"Ah yes. Quite old. Tell me, young man, do you have a favorite play yourself?" For the first time, Oswa noted the geezer's eyes were not just a mottled grey, but there were definitely blue highlights.

"Um," he stuttered. "Well, pai sho is rather complicated for me…."


	28. Chapter 28

_A/N. Despite my enjoyment of "Sokka's Master" I haven't really bought fully into this season. I like it, I understand its evolution. I just find it rather unsatisfying because it strikes me as "circumscribed". (Not to mention bowdlerized, but that's another story) Still, that all said I am compelled to finish my own vision first inspired by hints of the second season. So if all of this is terribly farfetched, well, you've been warned. Go away, it was never written for you!_

_That said. Thank you, my friends, for you patience with this stupid fic. (written 2009) _

_Declaimer: And…If I weren't supposed to be an officer of the court I woudn't believe this was even necessary. That said, no interests invested, no interests pursued, no gains attempted. Go away._

(Revised 3/12)

* * *

**Chapter 28**

Sokka had been led away to the storehouse shortly after following up a last genial insult to Zuko with a reasonably respectful request to re-supply his kit since, after all, it was Jeong-Jeong's fault that he was a good day behind his planned schedule on catching up with his friends. Zuko had not followed this time, choosing to leave the tree-shrouded river-bank with the old fire-bender. Sokka assumed the older boy had determined that they'd pretty much said their goodbyes. After all, what more was left?

What, indeed?

That damned intuitive itch that had awakened him from his nap under the tree was still curling up along his spine, and he still didn't understand what could have been setting it off. Maybe something he'd eaten in that odd tea-party earlier in the day was upsetting his stomach? Nah. Food of any stamp rarely bothered Sokka's stomach, at least, not anymore. That took something more along the line of human gore, splattered brains and charred flesh. Yep, _that_ turned his stomach every time, but that was _not_ the kind of sensation he was feeling anyway. No. Something else. Something he had missed in his observations; something, he was sure, that had to do with Jeong-Jeong.

It wasn't a lack of trust exactly – the Deserter had attempted to shield Aang last fall, and had provided counsel to Katara when she'd discovered her healing abilities. No, Jeong-Jeong would not betray either Sokka or Zuko to the Fire Lord's army or Zuko's sister. No, it had to be something about the knowledge that Jeong-Jeong commanded a private army apparently affiliated to no one but him that that was stroking Sokka's bone of discontent.

And here he was, preparing to leave the presumptive heir to the Fire Nation with this man of uncertain loyalties. It should have been enough that Jeong-Jeong had abandoned the Fire Lord and attempted to help Aang. It _should_ have been!

But for some reason that he still could not pin down, it was not.

Fuckit. He paused as he considered a lovely quarter-side of caribou-bear jerky that he could not even imagine the means of having found its way this far into temperate zones, before judiciously asking to have a reasonable hunk cut off instead of merely shoving the whole thing happily into his bag.

Guess he was just going to have to spend a little more time saying good-bye to Zuko after all.

* * *

Jeong-Jeong led him back into the small hut where they'd eaten earlier. As they entered, the myriad of candles came alight with a 'poofing' sound, and coals in the brazier silently began to glow. Jeong-Jeong knelt upon his customary cushion, and Zuko took the same place he had earlier.

He dismissed the hollowness he felt this time to the recognition that he had yet to become used to Sokka's absence. He _had_ spent time fully alone and, admittedly, he didn't like it. Uncle Iroh's annoyingly cryptic pronouncements had been replaced by Sokka's equally – if not more so – annoying commentary on virtually everything that caught the other boy's attention. The difference, it now occurred to him, between the two, was generally one of technique. Sokka's babble was camouflage to cover the processing of a highly active and acute brain. Iroh sometimes did the same, but Zuko had begun to recognize that even in his uncle's most inane statements there was usually some kernel of wisdom to be obtained. At this juncture, he had to admit he rather preferred Sokka's method – the younger boy couldn't resist actually revealing his more astute conclusions when properly prodded. Iroh remained an enigma.

How he missed the old man's inscrutability!

"I cannot tell you where your uncle is," Jeong-Jeong stated quietly.

Zuko noted that he did _not_ say that he didn't _know_ where his uncle was. It might not have been a distinction that made a difference, but even though he had not been at court for three years now Zuko found himself questioning. He stopped his lip from quirking at the memory of how Sokka had honed in so quickly on 'court-speak', and remembered back in prison suggesting that Sokka would have had a successful career as a courtier because of his ability to speak convincingly while his mind was otherwise occupied. Wistfully, it occurred to him that if he had held court, he'd have liked Sokka to be there on _his_ side.

He forced himself to focus on Jeong-Jeong.

"What _can_ you tell me, then?" He allowed a pregnant pause both before and after his words. "Can you help me at all? Or should _I _move on as well?"

"Alone? My prince, I may be able to offer you little beyond protection. If you cannot find your uncle, what else do you seek?" The scars pulling at the muscles of the old man's eyes gave them an asymmetry that struck a sympathetic chord in Zuko, even as he realized that the predatory gleam within their gold could easily be reality and not some trick of a misshapen facial structure.

So, was it merely because Jeong-Jeong was a living legend, an icon to Fire Nation culture, that drew him to align himself with the old soldier now?

"I seek… I seek mastery of fire that allows me to protect as well as destroy," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "And I want to know how to produce lightning."

Jeong-Jeong bowed his head, allowing his wild hair to cast shadows across his scarred face that discouraged any attempt to read meaning in its expression. But even under the best light, only the most optimistic of observers would have discerned anything like the curl of a smile there.

* * *

"If he doesn't like the new board, then bring out the old board. If he doesn't like that, then offer to bring in one of the local craftsmen to carve a new board. What is your _problem_, Osuwa? The Springs' motto is 'perfect service'; _what_ about that do you not understand?" Shumo hissed at his subordinate.

"He's not asking for that!" Osuwa squealed. "He wants me to _play_ with him – and I don't know the game! Shit, Shumo, I don't _play_ pai sho – is there something _else_ I should be prepared for? I don't _do_ other men!" Osuwa was in a dead panic; he did not understand the old man's interest in him, and he couldn't help but wonder if working for a spa didn't cast aspersions upon his own character that _wouldn't_ do. Not to mention, why was his superior so damned concerned about staying in the good graces of a crotchety old man who was only paying – by the night, mind you – for one lousy room?

The house manager dragged his fingers across his scalp slowly, attempting to draw patience from the gesture. He was reasonably sure that their guest was not actually suggesting the kind of intimacies that clearly had Osuwa at wit's end. Even if he were, the resort could have accommodated him, as Osuwa should have known, and found means to direct him towards.

"You don't play pai sho?" He asked wearily.

"No," Osuwa groaned. "I've no clue how to even lay out the opening tiles."

"Fine. Where did you leave him? And did you at least take a drink order?" Shumo waved for his assistant to come forward. It had been a few years since he'd played pai sho competitively, but he should be able to give the old man some entertainment. It was late enough in the evening that he could leave the front desk for a few hours. It wasn't as if he couldn't be easily found if necessary.

He considered the virtues of winning this game over losing. The board in the lounge was ceramic, as were the complementary tiles. He was a sufficiently accomplished earthbender to decipher those face-down on his opponent's side, which generally gained him enough advantage over any failures in his natural gamesmanship to give him enough advantage to win.

And the House owners never said this particular guest was supposed to win! They had merely insisted he be offered all the facilities' amenities. Shumo was fully aware that a pai sho game required at least an hour from him – it made him feel just enough of a whore to want to beat the old man; make him pay for his time.

And Osuwa would owe him something, wouldn't he? The dumbass. There were ways of dealing with customers, and there were ways…

Shumo looked again at the kanji notating this particular reservation. His smile turned a bit brittle. Oh yes! _This_ guest. Well, odds were pretty good he would enjoy the challenge anyway, cheat or not.

* * *

Once she'd been made aware of their observers Katara felt downright insulted at their obviousness. And not just a little bit mortified at her having missed them throughout their jaunt through the fields. Aang, being Aang, did not really protest, but she could sense that he too felt a bit foolish. Just how were they supposed to take out the greatest warlord of the last hundred-plus years if they couldn't even figure out when they were being watched?

For the first time in at least a month, she forgot about Sokka and his absence, and focused on the point of their mission with Aang. Instantly she positioned Aang in her mind's eye as she considered the availability of a water supply, Toph's readiness stance just in front of and to Aang's left, and the oddly passive status of Iroh, bent at the waist as he inhaled deeply of one of the day-lilies growing at the field's foot.

Her natural inclination was to yell righteously at the old man – as she would certainly have yelled at Sokka – but she remembered just in time that he still assumed there was value to be garnered in their apparent clueless state as to being observed themselves. Katara held her tongue.

She gave off a rather loud and absurd laugh, cooing over her shoulder at Aang as if in response to something he'd said. The Avatar looked briefly askance before cottoning onto Katara's game, laughing in response as he danced an abbreviated jig.

When the four resumed their walk, Katara noted she'd adopted a stance just to one side of Iroh, on the near side of the still burbling creek. Toph flanked Aang in the lead, her stride jaunty as it continuously surveyed every angle of their surroundings. Maybe she and Aang had taken longer than they should have to understand that they were under observation but, once aware, they had adapted.

Sokka would be proud.

They had come a long way since Aang had left the South Pole with the Water Tribe siblings, when it came to battle alertness. And, if all went well, Sokka would repair the only flaw in their formation by rejoining their ranks.

"Don't overdo it, Sugar," Toph yawned. "These guys are pretty clever."

"How would _you_ know?" Katara growled. "After all, isn't most of an Earth Rumble choreographed just for show anyway?" She knew better, really, and the slight stiffening in Toph's posture signaled as much. _Why_ did she feel the need to find ways to one-up the younger girl, anyway? Toph was a master! Wasn't that enough? Obviously not.

"You _aren't _suggesting that I didn't win my championships fair and square, are you? 'Cause, that would be painful, you know. Not for me, of course." Katara wondered briefly how Toph had learned to set her face so expressively when she'd never seen another face to model after. Were expressions hard-wired responses?

"Forget it. Now is not the time for us to show who can inflict the most pain on the other." She waved Toph's response aside, trying to keep her senses awake to read their observers.

Aang shuffled nervously, eyeing his two bending masters apprehensively. Why did they fall into this tension so easily? He was tempted to shake off Iroh's warm hand, but it did seem something of an oasis in the current turmoil.

"Excellent, girls," the old man intoned, "You are doing very well. Perceived internal conflict is among the best distractions to fool the enemy. I can tell you have practiced this maneuver."

Katara wished Toph could catch her eye as she was seized with a sudden fit of the giggles. So much for Iroh's great wisdom.

Despite herself, she managed to surprise something of a lopsided grin on the shorter girl's face. "Why, thank you, Iroh. You picked up on that _very_ quickly, given how little time you've spent with us so far. But Toph is the _master_ of angry subterfuge. I'm still learning from her."

"Huh, just 'cause your moronic brother only understands open warfare…"

"Right. The moron who had _you_ giving him extra food, sussing out the softest soil to lay his bedroll on, _and_ having you cheat passersby at dice just to increase _his _shopping credits."

"_If_ I cheated it was for _all_ of us, not just him, and which of us was still washing the moron's socks?"

Katara's face burned. "That was low. I've been washing his socks since our mother died!"

Toph stumbled slightly, which she hid with an adroit earth-bending move. She honestly wasn't sure who she'd rather be fighting Katara about, Aang or Sokka. Oops. She didn't like admitting even to herself that _either_ was worth fighting about. The older girl had prior claims on both of them and she really _didn't_ understand her own interest in either of them. Ugh. And here she'd provoked Katara beyond forgiveness.

_And doing a damned good job of it, obviously, since maybe you've taken her place in his eyes_. She didn't say it, and didn't want to, really. She hadn't meant to drop to these depths in her odd fight with the water-bender, and still didn't wholly understand what they were fighting about. But even snot-flinging Toph understood when _too far_ was too far.

Toph laughed. "So, since you've been busy washing everyone's socks, woman, why didn't you offer to wash anything for me? Just 'cause I don't _wear_ socks?"

Aang trembled even as he choked down a laugh. "Toph! Katara just washes hers and Sokka's stuff! I do my own stuff, right? And Iroh, he…um, well, Katara doesn't wash his stuff either, right?"

Katara met Aang's eyes with a sigh. She had offered long ago to take on the air-bender's laundry, since she was already doing her's and her brother's. "Yes, Aang. Except when you've been too injured, you've always taken care of yourself. Silly git."

"Very good, my friends," Iroh interjected. "I believe we are very nearly there, and our followers have no idea that we are onto their plan."

* * *

A/N: _Yep. No __movement__ in the story. Bitch at me as you wish. Since this whole thing has been about character development this chapter seemed just fine to me. Hell, I've just spent two days reading a couple fanfics that took over 60 chapters to bring a relationship to coitus that could rationally have taken maybe half that time. If I spent yet half again bringing multiple friendships into harmony without twisting the characters I figure I'm still ahead of the game._


	29. Chapter 29

_A/N: No, no reunion yet. But I've finally managed to insert one of the elements I had decided needed to be part of this story back when I first attempted to plan it out. I think you'll see what I mean._

_Disclaimer: No commercial claims here to rile the copyright-holders. Y'all feel free to read on._

Chapter 29

_Shit. I gotta stop second-guessing my instincts. Brain was perfectly content to get on outta here, get back to Katara and the others – that's where I'm s'posed to be! And something about this whole setup doesn't feel right, so that means instincts and brain agree about leaving, right? But no. I gotta check it out cause I'm leaving Zuko behind, and SOMEHOW I've started feeling responsible for him as well. Stupid. Guy's older than me and a hell of a lot more dangerous. And he's not just Fire Nation, he's the Fire Lord's son! …who was quite prepared to let him die._ Sokka shook his head, quite sure that this extended morality his soul had taken on was no doubt all Katara's and Aang's fault. He rather missed how simple his life was one short, frenetic year ago._ Take me back to merely facing giant leopard-whales, or even that fuckin' moose-lion._

He breathed heavily as he considered the scene before him.

He was back in a somewhat more secluded copse within the river valley, just above where he'd forced the flood and still further upstream of the clearing in which he and Zuko had first confronted Jeong-Jeong and his private army. Surprisingly, no one seemed to be paying him any attention whatsoever. Apparently, the free rein he'd been given as far as to taking supplies had extended to his general movements. While Jeong-Jeong had assumed he was well on his way away he hadn't given Sokka himself any kind of deadline. So his men didn't appear to be all that worried about much time he took to leave either.

Sokka grinned momentarily. Obviously, no one had figured out just how dangerous it could be to leave a Tribesman to his own devices, one flooded stream notwithstanding. Had his brain not been consumed with other worries, he would have been tempted to find some outlandish means to correct such absurd observations, or rather, to correct that misconception. On the other hand, being underestimated by his opposition and, frankly, even his friends, had always been a potent advantage for Sokka.

In the brief time he'd spent with his father, it was clear this advantage applied on a greater scale as well.

Sokka focused instead on his reason for delaying his leave after saying his goodbyes. That damn itch wouldn't let him leave. He'd been drawn to this site by noting the studious avoidance of the area by everyone he'd come across when he first left the quartermaster, even as his gut had yelled at him to flee the tremendous energies being released within.

"Instincts", he muttered under his breath. As he settled himself quietly with a good view of the clearing, while remaining well-concealed, he considered the problem. _I don't know what else to call it but instinct. I'm sure as hell not gonna say it's any kind of intuition. No, that's too girly, too much woo-woo and way too close to Aang's realm. Still, when the itch is there, I generally feel better if I scratch it somehow. Granted, I don't always choose right on the scratching part…_

Which had him distinctly worried. He'd been wrong before, paying attention to the itch. But he'd always felt worse when he hadn't done so, and things had somehow gone wrong. Like the day Dad had gone off with the fleet for a fishing trip, and as he'd waved goodbye from the crest of the ice shelf he'd seen odd blips on the horizon. Which had turned into Fire Nation ships and a lifetime of repressed memories later his mother was dead and Katara was sobbing against his shoulder in a confusion he desperately wished he could share.

Well, this couldn't be that kind of itch. It was just a sense of discomfort crawling delicately along his spine. And at this point, it was nothing to the sick feeling weighing in his gut heavily, which could also be his instincts and was definitely associated to the crackling sounds on the other side of the brush separating him from the clearing.

Mostly, Sokka's gut told him that sticking around to figure out exactly why he was otherwise uncomfortable simply wasn't worth the effort. Given the last year's experience with the supernatural, not to mention enemies who would as happily slice off your head as give you a nod, Sokka found the loud voice of that aspect of his instincts urging flight to be very compelling.

But even his gut had to admit there was something very interesting in the sight before him, of one fire-bender appearing to call energies literally from heaven against another. It was possibly the most frightening thing he'd ever seen. Given this past year's adventures, _that_ was saying something. After all, he'd survived not only the Northern Siege but rather more than his share of more closely directed conflicts, including altercations with both prince and princess of the Fire Nation. As he'd even earned his own death sentence in a Fire Nation prison – not to mention blowing the prison to all holy hell when he escaped - Sokka had _thought_ he'd seen the gamut.

Apparently, he was wrong.

A year ago Sokka's bowels might not have stood up to the sight of face and features almost blue with the energy gathering at fingertips, or the sensation of the fine hairs along his arms rising in response. Well, small grace for something, anyway.

It occurred to him to decide it was a pity Aang hadn't managed to spend enough time with Jeong-Jeong to learn fire-bending, since obviously the man was not just a master but a _fuckin_' genius at it! Another tree fell, the sound of its heavy bole extinguished in the deafening _crack_ that deadened the air and lit up something behind Sokka's eyes as he watched the elder fire-bender briefly lose his composure in the release.

Sokka didn't much like the hungry look on Zuko's face as his erstwhile companion pantomimed his elder's stance and movements. Sans pyrotechnic effects. He groaned. Hadn't he earlier in the day endangered a whole season's worth of food supply for who knew how many, precisely to call an end to such display?

Did fire-benders simply _not understand_ how fragile the nexus was between this year's success at producing food for the community and next year's labor supply?

A strange subtext crawled along Sokka's cerebrum: Did he _want_ to live in a world that didn't consider what each life had to contribute (or what each life took away from the whole)? And did that have something to do with his defiance against the Fire Nation beyond devotion to his father's ideals?

Oddly enough, he would have enjoyed verbally testing this concept against Zuko's defenses. Perhaps some portion of his enjoyment at the prospect was encompassed by the vision of Zuko's capitulation as to the justice of his argument.

He'd debated the point with Aang on those long flights on Appa as they'd worked their way north last winter. A few times back in prison he'd bored Zuko with long monologues on the topic as well. The Avatar had resolved battles between the peoples through shows of superior strength. Always, the final result would hinge on who had the most power. Who knew how long Fire Lord Sozen had been stockpiling his nation's economic output to build up his army and, more importantly, his navy, directing surplus into military research. Sokka's eyes glazed a bit when he thought of the wonderful technology and strategies he'd seen displayed. All without anyone's knowledge, of course. And because everyone else was busy just getting along, relying on the Avatar to maintain the balance, when he disappeared the Fire Nation stepped into the void.

So while Sokka was all for Aang using his mojo to restore the balance he was not comfortable with the idea of leaving it all up to him to take care of things thereafter. After all, he _knew_ the Avatar. The guy had personal shit he needed to deal with. And why should it all rest on the shoulders of one person, anyway?

Wouldn't it make more sense for the various nations to make a point of keeping eyes on each other, maybe focus their energies on mutual cooperation and maybe economic competition? In the last weeks of prison his mind had been consumed with other concerns. Anyway, Zuko had finally refused to let Sokka continue his grand pronouncements as to the "should be's" and "if I were in charge". The older boy's experience with and exposure to a culture of conquest, on both sides of the table, had given Sokka food to temper his rhetoric. Surely, such debate was a better way of solving problems than outright warfare.

After all, for all their disagreements they'd still managed to work together to destroy a prison. Water Tribe and Fire Nation could achieve something together if they were willing to talk instead of fight.

But that, of course, was out of the question. For all that the two had come this far together, the reality was they not only argued across cell walls, but continued to argue thereafter. Even on that tiny boat they'd found opposition in the simple artificial divide between port and starboard. The left – _bar sinister_ – against the right…

Sokka shook his head as if he'd just awoken in some confusion. Sizing up his surroundings, he decided to keep his own council regarding anyone's ascendancy in this open world of warfare.

Although it looked like a conflict in the clearing, it became apparent that it was not. Was his apparent continuing opposition with Zuko a similar illusion? There are options within, layers of gradation they may never have opportunity to consider, thanks to the war.

-------------------------

The lesson was virtually the same as Iroh had attempted to give him. In fact, truth be told, he actually found Jeong-Jeong's tutelage falling a bit short. It wasn't that the old man failed in any way at correcting his stances, or in clarifying his focus. No. Perhaps it was something more in Jeong-Jeong's acceptance of his readiness to learn this form, his lack of – admit it – _moral_ preparation.

So why was it that on his first attempt he felt the energies build in ways his time with his uncle had not managed? As he considered it, it occurred to him that the answer might lie within the month's plus of experience he'd gained since parting from his uncle. The mere thought skewered him with the lessons he'd learned during that time as effectively as the Water Tribe spear had pinned him to a tree. And the effectiveness with which a Tribesman had freed him, and not just from that tree.

Not that Sokka had ever actually been so direct or acute in his remarks to Zuko. No, it was just that he had been surprisingly adept at phrasing his commentary at ways that stimulated Zuko to self-analysis. Clever as he knew the Tribesman to be, he was not convinced that the younger boy's salvation of his soul was anything deliberate or calculated. Nonetheless, whether he meant to or not, he'd saved Zuko's life on several occasions. Zuko had owed him an honor debt. And every time Zuko had attempted to discharge that debt the Tribesman had stepped in to confuse or compound the issue.

He should have been glad to have Sokka gone. The idiot younger boy's idealism regarding re-establishing balance between the various nations was, surely, an empty dream. As a tree exploded with Jeong-Jeong's attack his vision had clouded with the memory of Uncle Iroh's impassioned defense of the moon spirit before an obviously insane Zhou.

_Why was it again that he needed to become a master fire-bender?_

With a hiss, Zuko threw off the unaccustomed weight of responsibility for Jeong-Jeong and his army. Damn it! Until he knew what the hell he was fighting for, it seemed absurd to expect him to fight for unknown others. There had been hints of Uncle Iroh's hidden army, an army of which he knew nothing. Surely he owed them nothing? Jeong-Jeong's army was similarly situated – until he knew its goals did he owe it any allegiance? Of course not! He had always pledged his allegiance to the Fire Lord!

Did he still (Sokka's voice in his head screamed "no")?

If not, then what?

Happily, Jeong-Jeong varied his approach from lightning attacks (were they perhaps, highly energy-consuming?) to more traditional fire-bolts for him to deal with.

Zuko side-stepped the fire-bolts, then reached out to leach the heat and force from the attacks such that they dissipated as a wind among the trees. Mind you, a hot wind that seared Sokka's cheeks before he managed to duck his head into his collar.

"You can't defeat me by merely absorbing some of my attacks, boy. Even if you manage most of them, can you count on all? No, I think not…"

The furor of fire sweeping along the valley this time was more frightening. Sokka almost swallowed his own tongue as he contemplated the damage.

Zuko passed through the stances again, this time easing back from the fierceness of his desire to bend lightning as he considered _why_ he wanted to do so.

-------------------------

Sokka, meanwhile, was reminding himself that as he was not a bender he had _no _supernatural defense against becoming collateral damage in Jeong-Jeong's attacks.

Jeong-Jeong was, by necessity oblivious to either boy's concerns. Zuko's movements were graceful and redolent of force. His flame burned hot and bright.

"A pretty show, but hardly the work of a master. Am I wasting my time with you?" Jeong-Jeong felt impatient. He had thought that his earlier test of Zuko had promised so much more than this.

Zuko shrugged, sucking all flame from the clearing, including that still smoldering from Jeong-Jeong's lightning-felled trees, in response. "You're the master. I cannot force you to see my readiness, or force you to teach me. And I can always move on."

Jeong-Jeong was surprised at how oddly compelling that golden-eyed gaze was upon him. No vision of the prince's powerful grandfather was necessary to inspire Jeong-Jeong to continue upon his efforts to turn Zuko into a fire-bending master. He did ask himself if Zuko was aware of his non-Fire Lord antecedents, and the tension that gave to the Fire Nation throne.

A tension he was more than tempted to exploit.

That said, the fire prince, for all his promise as an adept at fire-bending, still seemed wholly incapable of taking the final step into bending lightning. It seemed that the fire princess still remained the better bet as to who could claim the throne. Jeong-Jeong considered himself a man of compassion, but the greater good had become his defining paradigm. A damaged prince who held no promise for his people was, in all likelihood, worse than no prince at all. For the sake of his old loyalty to Crown Prince Iroh, Jeong-Jeong committed himself to another half-hour of high-level training in lightning-bending.

Really, he did not believe he owed more to an empty hope.

------------------------

Zuko could feel it, even as he felt the energies swirling around him. He hesitated to channel them into an attack, remembering all too well his failure there with Uncle Iroh. Still, just beyond his consciousness, he was aware of being very close to something sure, something calm and strong in its certainty in a way he'd never felt before. As he continued to dodge Jeong-Jeong's attacks, returning his own flames more by instinct than conscious thought, he allowed his mind to flow almost randomly. Almost as if he were meditating as Uncle had taught him. Uncle. Drinking tea from finely carved jade cups, or a cheap unglazed and misshapen bowel. The serenity of his visage unchanged. The sly wink as he cheated Zuko's crew at pai show. Which slipped into Sokka's equally sly grin as he suggested Zuko seduce the prison wench who'd turned out to be the warden's daughter. His determination as they packed blasting jelly in the prison wall's gates. The way they had laughed together over the caught fish. Sokka's cocky salute as he'd said goodbye. Their fights. Everything before and since.

And there it was. That sense of calm Uncle always had and that he'd been sensing now at the edges of his perception slipped dead center to wrap like an impenetrable blanket around his heart. As it did so, light gathered around Jeong-Jeong's fingertips in the way that signaled another lightning strike. Instead of dodging, this time Zuko stepped into the lightning, pulling it in along his arm, down into his stomach, and then out again along his other arm as he spun into a low wall of stacked stone.

He raised one arm to shield his face as the wall exploded from the blast, but couldn't refrain from watching, out of the corners of his eyes, a cloud of dust, interspersed with first smaller than larger pieces of debris spreading out in a satisfyingly large circle of destruction. Granted, he had not generated the force of the blow. No, that had been Jeong-Jeong. But he had absorbed it completely, and just as completely redirected it. Just as Uncle had said he could.

It seemed not just a vindication of the time Iroh had spent with him, but a portent as to his true place in this war.

As he turned back to Jeong-Jeong, he dropped his arms and executed a short bow to his elder. "I would apologize for knocking down the wall, but I strongly suspect the blame for it lies as much with the Water Tribe as this afternoon's flood did."

"Ah," Jeong-Jeong echoed Zuko's bow. "I am equally inclined to assign responsibility for the felled trees to the Water Tribe. My own experiences with them tell me they would decline the honor, and advise me to accept my shame along with my achievement. What does your experience with them tell you?"

Zuko suspected that there was at least as much of a story in Jeong-Jeong's statement as his attempt to hint at in his own. Since the elder man did not probe him for this, he returned the courtesy, instead thinking carefully about the question Jeong-Jeong had asked.

"I would say that my experience with the Water Tribe probably agrees with yours. They have definitely told me I need to be my own man."


	30. Chapter 30

_A/N: I've noticed a remarkable number of "story alerts" on this, and I can just hope some of you still remember the story from when I left off so many months ago._

_A brief recap, I think justified by the long hiatus: This is an AU story. Sokka and Zuko, having broken out of prison with death sentences upon them (from my "Prison Conversations" story) were working their way up-coast, Zuko in search of Iroh and Sokka looking for Katara, et al. Through a series of mishaps, they'd found themselves in the hands of Jeong-Jeong's private army. At first, Sokka was content to leave Zuko in the hands of a "friendly" Fire National, but his "instincts" have given him second thoughts. Meanwhile, Iroh has already started teaching Aang fire-bending, and Katara has convinced Aang, Toph, and Iroh to help her search for Sokka in the wake of news of his prison breakout…_

_If you find my recap insufficient, feel free to re-read as far back as you need. But damn! This thing has gone on so long that, frankly, if I were you I'd accept as given what I've told you so far…_

_Disclaimer: No money earned, no particular originality claimed. __Not__ worth a lawsuit… _

**Chapter 30**

In the midst of a certain aura of harmony and mutual complacency, both firebenders were surprised to find a familiar representative of the Water Tribes bursting upon their exercise ground. With barely more than a warning as to the source of attack and its nature, Sokka rolled again into hiding. Said warning was followed immediately by a burst of fire from some point behind and to the right of him.

The burst was intense, broadly based, and clearly meant to be lethal. As Zuko leapt aside reflexively, he noted that Sokka's initial leap, before rolling aside, had taken him directly – and unusually awkwardly for the generally lithe tribesman – along the path the fire burst took, on a trajectory slightly past where Zuko had been standing.

Before fully processing what he had seen - focusing instead on the words of Sokka's otherwise hysterical cry - Zuko wheeled to face the new threat, sending a pinwheeling spread of fire towards the perceived source, not only subsuming that part of the original burst of fire aimed in his direction but pushing past it without pause. Several 'poofs' joined the crackling sound of dissipating heat to signal that flame had _not_ been the only weapon thrown. As wooden shafts sizzled away into ash, their metal tips dropped in foreshortened arcs to the meadow floor just before him, one going so far as to bounce off his hip. A high-pitched keening sound that had greeted Zuko's attack when it hit the tree-line continued, although at lesser volume and frequency.

Zuko tuned it out; he'd heard enough cries of the burned – had screamed such enough himself – to last a lifetime. He did note out of the corner of his eye how Sokka's otherwise bronze skin paled.

Notwithstanding, Zuko heaved a sigh of relief. He was fast, but even with Sokka's warning he didn't think he was fast enough to beat the Yu-yan. Not that _these_ archers were anything to dismiss, necessarily, but at least they _weren't_ the Yu-yan – oh fuck!

A single arrow had followed up the first barrage, although it was a bit off course – another sign that it wasn't the Yu-yan - or perhaps had even deliberately missed its target, as it lodged in a fallen trunk marking Sokka's cover just to his own right. Well, yes, the Yu-yan _could_ miss on purpose – and he really should simply _stop_ thinking about them, now! _Eyes up, Zuko, don't be a sap congratulating yourself on spent victories…_

It was a bit funny, just how like the exercises on board his ship those first two years _this _experience was. Almost as if those exercises had been training for just such an encounter. Zuko snapped his brain away from such hazy thinking, focusing his concentration on the current situation.

In this brief break he noted that Jeong-Jeong seemed to have taken control of his part of the field, although he appeared hard pressed on one side. As he assessed his own opponents, he waited for the shifting of energies that would signal a lightning attack on the part of the old general. Why, when he had not bothered to spare Zuko in their sparring, did the old man hesitate now?

While hardly eloquent, Sokka's interruption had been sufficient to bring the two battle-hardened contenders into a necessary awareness of the changed conditions. It helped that he'd given fairly direct instruction as to just _where_ the real interruption to the day's events lay.

As Zuko and Jeong-Jeong proceeded to shift their focus of attacks from each other to the new elements on the field, Sokka's babblings were lost in the roar of flames. A listener plugged into Sokka at that moment might have interpreted them thus: _Dammit, Zuko, I _knew_ I never liked you that much! Now would be a _good_ time to show some of that bad-assery I know you're capable of… And why the hell wasn't _someone _in the old man's private army paying attention to this kind of possibility anyway… If we get out of this _that's_ a question somebody better be prepared to answer! Ah fuck! Dad, why didn't you warn me how loud flame warfare could be – surely you've figured out a way to communicate around this problem…_

* * *

He'd been expecting it, or something like it.

Not that he'd ever thought the Fire Prince himself would be in his company when the Fatherland attacked, but he would have been a pretty sorry general indeed if he hadn't recognized the likelihood that at _some_ point his potential strength would have been recognized as a threat. Zhao had come terribly close, but his obsession with the Avatar had led him away.

As expected.

The Order had run a terrible risk there, Jeong-Jeong had thought. To balance the fate of the world on the feelings of _children_, and the rantings of a madman? These thoughts raced across his mind as he went instantly into defence mode. Even as all his senses raced to record and assess the current situation, another part of his brain experienced a _fugue, _where time ceased to matter and his memory married his available cognitive processes to process the present in the context of the past. He vaguely suspected this might be what happened to men faced with the ultimate death experience, and then shrugged the suspicion away for being unproductive.

A single child could _not_ save the world, or so _they_ had determined. True balance required a greater understanding, and a broader-based trust. Something not available to any single individual, generally speaking. Which was, of course, the whole point of joining the Order in the first place – to gain that greater understanding.

Well, that was why _he_ had joined, in any case. He had other worries now…

Jeong-Jeong remembered the clear blue gaze of a Water Tribe girl, welcoming his words, and juxtaposed them against her never-forgotten elder, that woman's mercy in saving his life, at the cost of his scars. If he were lucky, the girl's brother would cost him little more. He rather wished he'd had some sense as to what role this boy might play earlier. Of course, if he had, would it have made a difference back then, and would that difference have changed how things played out now? Aah. Jeong-Jeong closed his mind to such thoughts. Now was _not_ the time to be wrestling with the paradox of destiny. Still, he hoped he might have some opportunity to find something to visit upon Sokka something in the way of payback…

He had wantedto _lead_ the way in the march of restoration. As someone who'd understood, perhaps better than most, the peril of depending on any single element's ascendancy, given his brilliance at controlling one element, he'd assumed he'd _earned_ such a role.

Jeong-Jeong knew his own strength. He knew he was legions beyond anything he'd acknowledged before his desertion. The Order knew it. He was almost certainly a match for the Fire Lord himself. Yet the Order kept him and every other member – even Iroh himself, who was at least as strong as the Fire Lord, if not stronger, certainly! - in quiet obscurity, waiting for the right opportunity. Well, Jeong-Jeong had refused to wait wholly idle, willing to risk premature discovery to maintain little zones of peace and safety, _and_ to build resources. He was a general, wasn't he? Didn't he know better than even most of the Order how important it was to have trained backup?

As for the wretched timing of his being found again, he snorted. The first time had been the fault of a small group of children, hadn't it? And here was one of them again. Perhaps the Tribesman still was something of an idiot after all.

In any case, he certainly couldn't afford to let it all go for naught now, nor could he reveal his strength just yet either. Jeong-Jeong would have sworn he had still at least a month to plan and position his troops. Wasn't there still that much time before the comet's return, or had he miscounted?

Frankly, he'd begun to doubt that he would ever be this close to any center of conflict again – the Avatar had frightened him horribly by appearing on his doorstep last fall so wholly unprepared and seeking guidance.

Not at all what the Order expected or had led him to believe.

His confidence in the Order had been shaken then, even as fire crawled up his belly to eat at his soul, as it had all these many years since his last assault on the Water Tribes.

As Jeong-Jeong continued to assess and respond to the current situation, he found the past impossible to dismiss. In the space of a heartbeat, memory retraced reason. Had he been mistaken to join the Order in the first place? How he had struggled to find meaning from that last mission and the ravages it had wrought – no, the ravages _he_ had wrought, not just on the Water Tribe but on his own men! As he lay recovering well enough physically, he had wondered if he would ever recover spiritually.

The image of an apparently shattered prince returning from a failed siege had done little to reassure him. At least, at first.

As the two of them recovered from their wounds in the infirmary, they had played game after game of pai show. At first the pieces had taken the roles of fire-benders in historical battles. Later, despite the apparent reprise of such battles on the board, the disinherited prince had played out new strategies that the crippled fire-bender had found…intriguing.

So few words exchanged. So many different outcomes. And with each, a suggestion of impacts and consequences.

By the time Jeong-Jeong had left the infirmary, his "games" with the then-retired General Iroh and his memories of the water-bending witch who had permanently scarred him, were almost indistinguishable in terms of his ability to assess the future. He knew he would be sent back out in the field soon; and it was with no surprise some weeks later that he welcomed the now corpulent and lazy elder prince of the Fire Nation to his quarters.

Iroh left behind him that night a pai show piece in the form of a lotus flower. In the wake of a man who'd eschewed a throne, was it so much to forego mere office to gain brotherhood?

* * *

"Oh shit. I wish I hadn't heard them scream." By now Sokka had tucked himself well behind a haphazard screen of logs felled during Zuko's and Jeong-Jeong's "mock" battle. The two fire-benders breasted the splayed logs, one on each end of a tripod placement, with Sokka at the join of the wide 'v'. Already, a few of Jeong-Jeong's army had managed to make their way to the edges of the clearing, but it was obvious fairly quickly that whoever was targeting them had laid out Jeong-Jeong's defenses well in advance.

Equally obvious, the offensive was all Fire-Nation. From time to time, the sap in a pine tree would explode as it was hit. These explosions punctuated the otherwise consistently dull roar of exchanged fire blasts fueled only by fire-bender will.

"Huh. It _burns_ like normal fire, it _looks_ like normal fire, but it doesn't necessarily _sound_ like normal fire. Why not? Does that mean that there is some crucial difference…?" Perhaps merely to free his brain from an apparently hopeless situation, even as he himself sensed he was on the verge of a breakthrough, Sokka forced his thoughts into a wholly different vein.

"This… is… _not_ my job! Protecting Katara and Aang… Damn you, Zuko! Even if you are the world's biggest dumbass - as long as your father is _shithead_ number one - and just what is Jeong-Jeong's excuse, anyway? If you're having troubling interpreting – DAMNIT! _I really don't want to be here_!" He knew he was still babbling, but at some point in the battle – maybe when a couple of bodies had flung themselves over his shielding log virtually into his lap – he'd lost all sense of perspective.

Sokka _hated_ fighting, when it came right down to it. Oh, he could do it, as he'd shown time and time again, but for all his bluster he would really rather talk than fight. Still, from the relatively bloodless venture back on the earth-bender prison ship to that particularly ugly village debacle that had landed him in prison in his turn - in which he'd been unearthed from a bloody pile of Fire Nation soldiers, with perhaps rather more blood upon him than left in the bodies themselves - Sokka had demonstrated that he'd understood war was no mere board game of strategy.

As he grimly swallowed down the bile that had forced its way up his esophagus at the sight of the blistered wreckage of a Fire Nation soldier, already oozing body fluids from the seams of blackened char and angry dead flesh, he acknowledged that it was not something he appeared to be likely to be getting used to. He pulled the machete from its sheath with one hand even as he gripped his boomerang in the other. With a groan he turned away from the tree bole's relative shelter to consider what had become an actual battlefield.

Yet again.

* * *

"Okay, kiddies, we're talking a full-out battle go'n on up ahead," Toph tried to keep her speech both flippant and still transmit the intensity of the conflagration her feet were sending her with every step. "Makes sense that Sokka would be in the middle of a bit of a dust-up, doesn't it? Who wants to bet me he's the reason for all the trouble anyways?"

Katara found herself spitting out words without thinking that she would _never_ have imagined half a year before. _Damn it!_ If Dad had been around, _he_ would have stopped her from spending so much time with Sokka, so much time exposed … blending the differences between what was acceptable between men and women… asking so much!

"Yow! Sugar Queen's bit into a lemon! We're all gonna die!" Toph managed to growl as she dug one bare foot deep within the gravel lining the path before them; raising a thin earthen berm before them with every step

Aang scowled. "_You're _supposed to be the greatest earth-bender ever. _I_ could pierce that barrier with a mild hurricane…"

"You think?" Toph scoffed. "Try it, Twinkle-toes. There's iron-ore in the land beneath us, which I guess you didn't bother to notice. Face it, even as Avatar you can't beat me at _metal_-bending, Sweet-cheeks! Don't worry, I can make this berm roll along as long as I sense iron…" the blind girl's oddly opaque eyes gleamed in a way they had come to recognize. "Trust me, kiddos, we got a nice vein accessible for miles!"

Iroh smiled, perhaps for the first time since leaving the sanctuary earlier that morning. "Then I would guess the rest of us may rely upon you, Toph, for what lies ahead." He had noticed that their path had been virtually empty far too long under even _normal _circumstances.


	31. Chapter 32

_A/N: No excuses, no promises. As for disclaimers, I own nothing and expect less. Suit would result in, as they say, pissing in the wind…_

Chapter 31

Shumo had been surprised to see the opening play of the white lotus at the center of the board. It was, he knew, a highly unorthodox move, generally calling for a rather obsolete form of stylized play that changed the rules of the game somewhat, making it actually a point advantage to advance without either sacrificing one's own tiles or taking your opponents. He could pretend he didn't recognize the gambit, and follow the normal rules. In all likelihood, his opponent would abandon the form and they could settle in for a traditional no-holds-barred battle. Which _he_ had every intention of winning.

But when he had looked across the board into the old man's wintery eyes, the twinkle within and gentle smile creasing deep lines from forehead to the slack skin beneath his jaw spoke a silent challenge that he found himself unable to ignore. So what if winning without inflicting or enduring significant losses was the most difficult form of the game. He'd show the old fart that just because his own brow was free of wrinkles, Shumo was a sufficient master to best him at his own game! With a certain defiance, he placed his sleeping dragon tile on the north-point one-west square.

His opponent's smile deepened and, before playing his next tile, he poured out two cups of tea from the tray at his elbow. "Ah, my friend. You give me much pleasure this afternoon. I hope you will enjoy this as much as I will!"

"Of course, sir. I only hope you won't find me too poor of an opponent to give you a good game," he responded demurely, nodding thanks for the tea. "Osuwa, why don't you bring out a bottle of Omashu brandy to serve with the tea. It has a fine balance that I'm sure our guest will appreciate." _And a hell of a kick to it, that sneaks up on you if you're not used to it!_

He didn't miss the look of surprise on his subordinate's face as he scurried out of the room. There were only a few cases of Omashu brandy left since, with the city's fall to the Fire Nation, it had become almost prohibitively expensive to obtain.

"Oh my, the Springs is truly hospitable. I will certainly take advantage of your graciousness." The old man settled himself a bit more comfortably, almost negligently placing yet another tile. Shumo wondered if he was really as careless as to the course of the game as these last several moves seemed to suggest, or if this was a sham to disarm him. Well, as far as he was concerned, it wouldn't make any difference. He shifted his own position at the table and attempted in inject real warmth into what he knew was a rather watery smile.

The brandy would come out of Osuwa's pay.

* * *

For the most part, Jeong-Jeong's prowess as a fire-bender was holding off all the small fry. With Zuko aligned with him, Sokka thought the two had also made significant inroads against the fire-benders stretched out in a rough half-circle before them. Rough, because they kept shifting in and out of the surrounding trees. Sokka had yet another opportunity to observe fire-bending's general reliance on attack over defensive moves, but he spared little attention to such analysis.

It did strike him as somewhat ironic to see fire-benders battling _against_ one another in earnest. He was relatively certain that throughout the course of one hundred years of war such a sight was so rare as to be incomprehensible, probably at least as much to the combatants themselves as to the on-lookers. Except, of course, for those 'duels' Zuko had told him about, and that odd confrontation between Iroh and Zhao's retainers back at the North Pole last winter.

Given the apparent advantage Zuko and Jeong-Jeong had over their opponents despite their greater numbers, there was a distinct argument for Sokka hanging tight right where he was. And he had to admit, he liked the idea of letting the combat strengths of the two fire-benders lead the way, with Jeong-Jeong's trained ranks of pseudo militia on clean-up.

It only took one arrow digging deep into the wood near his shoulder to decide this argument was, after all, less than compelling, as far as he was concerned. Not that _he_ could incinerate the arrows in mid-air as Zuko and Jeong-Jeong did. While he considered this, his eye had already measured the angle of the offending arrow's flight path as he assessed the likelihood of his assailant's quickly changing position from a good vantage point. On his next breath Sokka launched the boomerang at the arrow's source, and another breath later a muffled cry indicated success in it's reaching its target. He shifted his stance to anticipate the weapon's return even as he plotted his next angle of attack.

_Don't let them pin you down, _don't_ be predictable…_

Okay. So to Zuko's flank there seemed to still be some decent cover, but none of Jeong-Jeong's men had made their way to that side yet. Granted, it was predictable _if_ the enemy were paying good attention and thought he would actually move… Sokka grinned. Rarely did anyone _ever_ pay sufficient attention to the non-benders in a bender battle, as his success just now in eliminating the archer sniper indicated. And, as Dad always said, ignoring an enemy's weakest asset could be fatal in a close battle. Ah, the beauty of being underestimated was that it always, yes _always_ proved to be a telling advantage.

As the boomerang sailed back over the felled trunk Sokka caught it and rolled heavily past Zuko, scrambling yet further to get at the far edge of the cover before letting fly yet again with the boomerang. This time he aimed a far broader arc for his throw before diving in to kneel behind the still burning tangle of branches at the near end of the newly felled tree. The green wood of the branches sent up a dense cloud of smoke, and while the heat was uncomfortable, as long as Sokka kept low neither the smoke nor flames were a real problem to him.

_Still, it _would_ be a _good_ time for a water-bender to show up. Pity Katara's not around to make use of that stream._

Sokka's thoughts of his sister did not interrupt his mental counting, which had already made allowances for slight shifts in trajectory as the boomerang sailed past - and even _through -_ some obstacles given the force of his throw, even as he considered the likelihood of flank attacks, either from fire or arrows. Gripping the machete by its strap, he started swinging it in a broad rotation before him, hoping to shield from the latter as he carefully timed retrieval of his boomerang.

* * *

"There's a lot of smoke over in that direction," Aang shouted. "How many fire-benders do you suppose there are, and who are they fighting?"

He had kept his pace down to a trot given his companions' limitations, but he was surprised at how quickly the elderly Iroh actually managed to move. They were close enough where they all could hear the sound of burning trees and fire-blasts. Aang's heart grieved for lost woodland, remembering the great forest spirit's sorrow in another time, another place.

"How many depends as much on who is in charge and who they are fighting against as anything else, my young friend. But for all the smoke and noise it seems to be fairly contained in area. We'll know better once we get closer." Iroh said grimly. It was a good thing he had been spending so much time with these lively children these past weeks. His own stamina had improved significantly lately.

"Aang, can you use your glider to get above them and see what's going on?" Katara suggested.

He shook his head. "Too much smoke. And the air currents in those conditions are pretty tricky. I could do something about it – remember that volcano last fall? – but then they'd definitely know I was here. Do we want to risk that?"

Katara shuddered. "I dunno. General Iroh, what do you think?"

Toph snorted. "Aang's our trump card. We don't play him unless we need to, and no lousy group of fire-benders is enough to beat _me_! Are you _really_ feeling so wimpy, Katara?"

"Of course not. I'm just worried about what might happen to Sokka before we get there. After all, Aang's a lot faster!" Katara said hotly.

Had Toph forgotten the whole point of this venture?

"We cannot fault you for worrying, Katara," Iroh soothed. "But at this point, any indiscriminate bending of any sort might cause more harm than good. We need to get closer. Perhaps, though, it would make sense for Aang to go on ahead of us." He nodded to the Avatar.

Without another word Aang leapt ahead, hurdling the berm of earth that Toph continued to roll along with them and disappearing in a cloud of dust.

"Great. Now we're gonna have to find _him_ as well as Sokka. 'Super' idea, Sugar Queen," Toph grumbled.

Katara bit her lips to keep from snarling back. She knew Toph was only speaking out of a somewhat misplaced sense of worry for her student, as well as a bleeding out of the worry they all felt for Sokka. She understood it perfectly – Aang was now a _more_ than competent water-bender, and she had been astonished at his versatility at earth-bending – but his _instincts_ still relied on air-bending, and if she had learned nothing else over these long months of traveling the world with him, Katara had learned that different situations favored different forms of bending. This _should_ have given Aang the advantage, since he could theoretically bend all four elements at will. And without question, he was an astonishingly fast learner. But his expertise at all but air-bending was still _so_ new, so untested, and so _not_ natural to him… Maybe Toph was right to be worried.

"Courage, young ones," Iroh interjected again. "Have faith in your companions as well as in yourselves. We can only do what we can do. Now, perhaps I can run a _bit_ faster if you can?"

Both girls answered with a quickening of their pace.

* * *

Zuko was a bit surprised when Sokka slipped past him to join the fray. It wasn't that he thought the other boy was a coward, but he had noticed that Sokka was extraordinarily rational most of the time – so it was no particular surprise that he was definitely one to avoid a fight where possible. And really, not only did he think he and Jeong-Jeong had things well in hand, but he wasn't wholly comfortable with Sokka's ability to handle himself in a fight among fire-benders. Sokka's strength was in strategizing, and while he was handy enough in a general fight – he'd seen evidence of that on numerous occasions – a fire-bending battle was an altogether different sort of affair.

Well, he certainly wasn't Sokka's keeper, and it wasn't as if they were exactly friends or anything. Sokka would just have to manage for himself in this if he wasn't prepared to stay under cover.

Zuko was still wondering why Jeong-Jeong kept his own tactics to standard fire-bending. Well, if you could call the exquisite form and control of the old man _standard_. What Zuko found particularly impressive was how Jeong-Jeong managed to pull energy from the blasts aimed at him and turn it around to their attackers. There was very little burning brush or trees behind them, although the scorch marks from their own battle were clearly evident. Still, he couldn't help thinking a little bit of lightning-bending would have put paid to this whole affair in pretty short order. After all, it was _fire-benders_ they were fighting.

Zuko stumbled a bit as he felt a rather forceful thud against his armor. One of the archers apparently had managed to put enough force behind his arrow that its head retained sufficient momentum to actually hit him even after its shaft had disintegrated. Not only that, it had managed to penetrate enough to actually stick to his chest armor. Damn! He needed to keep his focus on his _opponents_, not on his allies!

Zuko dropped to rest his weight on his hands in a spinning kick that shot out a particularly potent gout of flame in the direction he guessed the arrow had originated, springing back up to meet a flame attack from another angle. With a grimace he remembered how recently his shoulder had been impaled – that arm was still a bit weak, and his recovery from his kick had been both slower and less graceful than he liked. Not to mention, he was getting tired.

But he couldn't help feeling a certain satisfaction at the same time. Jeong-Jeong was clearly _not_ making any effort to cover him, and that confidence in his abilities sent a flush of warmth throughout his being, reminding him again of his recent triumph in deflecting the old man's lightning.

It never occurred to him at all that Jeong-Jeong didn't actually give a damn if he survived. It wasn't as if anyone actually knew the prince of the Fire Nation had made contact with the renegade Navy officer. In any case, both were under death sentences.

What mattered was that he was expected – no, trusted – to pull his own weight here. And he had no intention of disappointing anyone!

What _were_ the consequences of a whittling down of the Fire Nation royal family, anyway? Assuming the Fire Lord could be set aside, short of some all-out conflagration, - such as confrontation with the Avatar - his only heirs were his son and daughter. The first was already essentially disinherited, absent his appearance at the palace with the Avatar in chains behind him. And the other? Well, those in the know were ready to attest to the Lady Azula as a potential Fire Lord without historical parallel.

Of course, there were those – in aplenty - who couldn't help but wonder where the lines of such a dynasty would, or could, be drawn. Hopes born with the apparent ascendency of Prince Iroh had for long years been buried. Perhaps it should have been no surprise to learn how those hopes had shifted, finding form here and there, such as with the new young prince or, even on occasion, the new princess.

Even without Iroh apparently disinherited - and equally important, _disappeared_ - the Fire Lord's children were the obvious heirs apparent.

But, under the circumstances, it would take an astonishing act indeed to determine which would take succession!

* * *

Jeong-Jeong was ready to pull out the entrails of his closest lieutenant at this point. By his own count, this particular skirmish counted at least four dead and perhaps half a dozen maimed possibly beyond recovery on both sides. Unconsciously, he was already tabulating this particular battle against some mental pai sho game in his head, scored against the White Lotus gambit of losses tolled against the game-leaders on each side.

Damn it! He was a _soldier_, and an uncommonly fine one, ready to give his all to his countrymen; nay, he had _already_ given virtually all. Wasn't that enough? Having signed his allegiance to the Order, he knew better, of course. But it had never occurred to him that he would be the one to hold such wild cards as the Fire Prince and his oh-so-unlikely ally, the decidedly unusual son of an unrecognized southern Water Tribe chief, during the final play round. Hadn't it been hard enough to manage the very wayward youthful Avatar earlier on?

Clearly, the spirits were not playing fair with Jeong-Jeong!

* * *

Much as he would have been loath to admit it, Iroh knew in his heart that "fair" was not a word that held much sway in the Dragon of the West's lexicon. Ever a canny warrior, Iroh had always placed more credence in greater intelligence over greater numbers in any encounter. He hadn't been exaggerating as to his success rates with Katara and Toph. Rationally, he'd _always_ considered the future consequences of massive death counts after every battle on both sides, weighed against somewhat fatter calves and purses of prominent persons in the opposition, and had had no difficulty in balancing out the accounting. As for his enemies' morals, well, Iroh felt no particular compunction there – if by agreeing to his terms they fell by the wayside that was their problem, not his.

He'd always believed that thereby lay, ultimately, fewer deaths – the betrayers weren't dependent on him for a source of betrayal, surely – and in Fire Nation supremacy lay progress for all…

It galled him that it had taken a highly personal death to open his eyes to the insubstantiality of "Fire Nation supremacy". He thanked the spirits that his career hadn't taken a yet greater toll in life before he'd finally understood the immeasurable difference between "resource value" and "life value".

His still excess weight (despite several months now of dieting and exercise) placing more stress on his legs – and lungs and heart, thank you - than he liked to think about as he struggled to keep pace with the younglings on either side of him, Iroh dove deep into the wellsprings of certitude that had always formed the crux of his world-belief, his reason for being, to keep going forward. From there he drew strength – his inspiration already arrayed on each flank in the fierceness of a feminine gaze.

He considered, briefly, how much _off-task_ this particular foray had veered from his Order-assigned duty to instruct the Avatar in fire-bending. It wasn't as if he hadn't done his utmost to do just that, especially given the reports from Jeong-Jeong, the Order's greatest teacher. Iroh chuckled a bit – the only reason he'd been allowed to continue teaching Zuko was because his teaching skills were considered obscure, and failings by the Fire Prince would be all to the good. On the other hand, ancient methods might serve the out-of-time Avatar better than current thinking…

With a wry twist of his lips, Iroh acknowledged to himself, if no one else, that his obsolete and obscure methods had only served to open the teaching door and, in point of fact, it had been wholly the Avatar's choice – just as it had always been Zuko's – as to just what he was prepared to learn from Iroh. He heartily doubted that any of his compatriots would have served measurably better, teaching either student.

As he drew closer to the heat generated by the battle, Iroh tamped down his own ego and ability. His time as a leader was long-gone. A battle-weary eye assessed the situation, taking in Katara's frightened face and his own experience, before firmly setting aside the Order's objectives.

At least, for today.


End file.
